The Arecibo Radio Telescope and Its Sad Demise

During the last half of the 1980's, I was serving in the United States Navy and had the privilege of being stationed at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on the island of Puerto Rico for two different seven-month tours.  The second time was after the wrath of Hurricane Hugo had devastated the area, as we came in to help the island recover.  During my first tour though, I did manage to explore various parts of this beautiful island during weekend liberties.  

One of the fascinating places I saw during my many expeditions on the island was the Arecibo Observatory.  In a huge natural depression in the tropical mountains above the town of Arecibo, a gargantuan radio telescope measuring one thousand feet in diameter was constructed some 57 years ago.  This was the largest single radio telescope in existence until just a few years ago when China built a larger one.  The Arecibo radio telescope was invaluable for scientific exploration and discoveries while monitoring electromagnetic radio frequencies from space.  Indeed, even Nobel caliber work occurred at this site with work on binary pulsars.  Also, if you are a James Bond fan, you might remember this site from the movie, Golden Eye.

In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria further devastated the island and caused damage to this giant radio telescope.  My wife and I were able to return to the island in 2019 and visit the site, which was still up and operational at the time.  Unfortunately, the lack of funding and the ravages of nearly sixty years of time took its toll on this marvelous site and it experienced a catastrophic failure of one of its supporting cables that held up the Gregorian dome suspended above the dish in December of 2020.  This caused a chain of events as the other cables were not able to support the sudden dynamic increase in loading as the array crashed into the dish below.

The nerd in me saw this YouTube video from Practical Engineering that tells about this extraordinary radio telescope and its subsequent demise and I had to share this as it was something that made quite an impression on me as a young man.  The pictures below are ones that I took on my trip in 2019.  The video follows the pictures and is worth a look.  They had a drone aloft right at the time that the catastrophic failure occurred.  It is at around 12 minutes and 40 seconds of this 18 minute video.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

 The entrance to the visitor center and observatory.

 

Overlook from the viewing platform at the control station.

 

 

 

One can see the radio telescope array and the catwalk suspended above the giant dish below.

One of the three leviathan-sized suspension towers can be seen towards the right of the picture.

 

 

This is a close up of the Gregorian dome which collects the reflected radio waves from the dish for measurement and analysis.

 

 This is a close up of one of the three suspension towers for the telescope array and Gregorian dome.

 

 

 

 

Another view of one of the suspension towers as one approaches the visitor center.

 

 We got to see the control station, which was fascinating, especially because some of the equipment seemed rather dated.  Here you can see Raj and Howard busy at work.  Sheldon was in the corner criticizing them.  Being a happily married man, I did not even notice if Penny was there.

 

This is the overlook control station that is used to position the array and Gregorian dome for measurements.

 

 It took a remarkable amount of self control to not start repositioning the Gregorian dome when I was that close to the controls.  I figured I'd be about as popular as Trump at an Antifa riot if I did.

I was glad I got to see this remarkable piece of engineering again, and I am saddened by its demise this last December.  Perhaps it may be rebuilt eventually.  If not, it has served us well for six decades of amazing scientific discoveries and exploration!