Iconic Arecibo Observatory telescope collapsed

[danadam]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55147973

 

[amirm]

Yeh, saw the sad news this morning. Just yesterday I was reading the ground roots efforts to save the observatory. It is so iconic. Wish it could have been preserved. It was pictured in one of my favorite movies: Contact.

 

[amirm]

Crappy video but has all the right scenes:

 

[RayDunzl]

Too bad...

The distributed and networked antennas are surely more useful.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...ll=3.3689153687189095,-19.816137590427438&z=3

 

[RayDunzl]

I like the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0761236,-107.6226651,3a,75y,54.76h,97.02t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN4R8t-kdsBQbTi-hEMviy8nZysvcoY_RrZCvZR!2e10!3e11!6shttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipN4R8t-kdsBQbTi-hEMviy8nZysvcoY_RrZCvZR=w203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya276-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yeah sad news.

Been reading about the problems there a few weeks. I don't understand why it would be so costly or difficult to get some additional support cables in place. Not in place to make it operational, but in place to support it safely until it could be properly repaired. There was a plan to at least shore things up a few weeks ago, but whomever is calling the shots decided it was too dangerous.

More than likely if you were there it would be apparent why it couldn't be done, but from a distance it seems as if not much effort was made to hold things up on a jury rigged basis until it could be properly fixed.

I also wonder about maintenance. The structural support cables were at end of life. Was there never anything in place to replace them, and were these the original cables from so long ago? Seems like an easily avoided problem.

 

[somebodyelse]

It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd caught the worsening condition in time. For whatever reason they didn't, and the judgement from the inspection after the first breakage has been vindicated by events. The comments (long and growing) for the recent ArsTechnica articles suggest that mechanical maintenance is somewhat lacking at many of the facilities due to budget constraints, although there's a link in there about the shenanigans with substandard cabling that went into the Brooklyn Bridge too. There's also a link to a recent newsletter with a comment from one of the original designers saying it had done very well for a structure with a 10 year design life. If there's a published post mortem investigation we might find out some measure of the truth.

 

[Blumlein 88]

One article from 2014 said the cables had a 40 year design life. But extra gear was added a few years back with no upgrade to the cabling for the extra weight.

 

[PierreV]

the facilities due to budget constraints

I briefly considered astrophysics as a teen. My parents somehow found and invited an astrophysicist for a chat at home. The only piece of his advice I remember 40 years later was "find a rich and supporting wife".

 

[somebodyelse]

I've seen conflicting info in different articles on cables and refits, none referenced to verifiable sources, so if you've got any better info I'd be interested. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we ever see enough detail to make a sound engineering judgement though. I'll settle for being sad to see it go, but happy nobody was injured in the process.

 

[Blumlein 88]

http://www.naic.edu/~newslet/no37/NAICNo37.pdf

Newsletter from the 40th anniversary. Lots of people involved in its earliest days gave information on it. It was indeed designed for 10 years initially.


An operator's manual for the 430 mhz system from 2005 has some interesting up close photos and other info.
https://www.naic.edu/~phil/hardware/xmiter430/430tx_manual_hagen.pdf

 

[sailor2005]

I went to the Observatory a couple of times as a kid (I live in Puerto Rico). That thing was HUGE!..at least to my kid eyes..

 

[Eurasian]

One of the most interesting hikes I ever made was through the rivers and caverns underneath the observatory and nearby. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to see this place while it was intact, and very sad that the structure has failed and is beyond practical repair.

 

[ElNino]

I've seen conflicting info in different articles on cables and refits, none referenced to verifiable sources, so if you've got any better info I'd be interested. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we ever see enough detail to make a sound engineering judgement though. I'll settle for being sad to see it go, but happy nobody was injured in the process.

NAIC has been giving details of everything that happened along the way: https://www.naic.edu/ao/repairs-update

Basically, it had redundant cabling and people suspected for years that the cables might not still meet their design specs. On Aug. 10 the cable mount for one of the auxiliary cables failed in an unexpected way due to improper installation. This put stress on the main cables, one of which failed on Nov. 6. They hired three engineering firms to assess, who found that this second failure confirmed that the main cables could no longer handle their rated load. None of the firms could come up with a safe proposal for fixing it (the suspended platform weighs 900 tons!).

It's sad to see it go, but China's new FAST is for the most part a better instrument for everything but high frequency observations. The radar astronomy community is down to just the Goldstone Solar System Radar though, which you often see in movies too... it's that big array of dishes in the desert.

 

[RickSanchez]

Pictures: https://gizmodo.com/gut-wrenching-photos-show-damage-at-arecibo-observatory-1845790190

 

[Martin]

Sad. I think it would be great if some tech billionaire would step up and make rebuilding it a pet project.

Martin

 

[Blumlein 88]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03421-y

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03270-9
According to these articles the cables at Arecibo were in fact the original cables from 1963.

They have pictures after the collapse. Tops of the cable towers broke off as well.

 

[RayDunzl]

So you wanna be an Astrophysicist?

Unpack this for fun.

 

[RayDunzl]

China has one they might let us use...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...472359016238f4!8m2!3d25.6528077!4d106.8566259

May I use your new radio telescope please?
可以用你的新射电望远镜吗？
Wǒ kěyǐ yòng nǐ de xīn shèdiàn wàngyuǎnjìng ma?

 

[Blumlein 88]

China has one they might let us use...

View attachment 97059

https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...472359016238f4!8m2!3d25.6528077!4d106.8566259

May I use your new radio telescope please?
可以用你的新射电望远镜吗？
Wǒ kěyǐ yòng nǐ de xīn shèdiàn wàngyuǎnjìng ma?

What's with the irregular spiral pattern in toward the middle. Someone roll a giant marble around the edge or something?

Besides, it is not yet operational is it?