Arecibo observatory: Welcome to The Arecibo Observatory

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December 17, 2022
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Welcome to The Arecibo Observatory

Welcome to The Arecibo Observatory | The Arecibo Observatory

Arecibo Observatory.

Welcome

At the Arecibo Observatory we are always looking for ways to improve our connections and collaborations; and we are excited about our new site which includes a redesigned look, changes to navigation and updated information on our Science and Visitor’s Center. So take a look around and enjoy! We hope you find it entertaining and informative. I also encourage you to visit us in person, our state of the art Science and Visitor’s Center blends Arecibo’s scientific accomplishments with current technology to provide a user experience like no other.
We hope to see you soon!

– Francisco Cordova, MSCE, PE
Director of the Arecibo Observatory

Why is it so special?

This giant telescope has scrutinized our atmosphere from a few kilometers to a thousand kilometers where it smoothly connects with interplanetary space. With its radar vision it studies the properties of planets, comets and asteroids. In our Galaxy it detects the faint pulses emitted hundreds of times per second from pulsars. And from the farthest reaches of the Universe quasars and galaxies emit radio waves which arrive at earth 100 million years later as signals so weak that they can only be detected by a giant eye like this one.

Our telescope

The Vision

Toward 2025 the Arecibo Observatory (AO) will continue to be recognized as a world-leading radio astronomy, solar system radar and atmospheric physics facility, contributing highly relevant data to support discovery, innovation and the advancement of science for the well-being of human kind. AO will establish a world-class on-site and virtual educational program supporting K-16 and PhD-level studies, to stimulate and promote new generations of scientists and engineers at national level, while also contributing to the economic and social development of Puerto Rico.

“If you dream, have big dreams and have talented supporters to help you”
William “Bill” Gordon

Arecibo Observatory

Recent Discoveries

What’s happening at the AO?

NSF plans another collapse for Arecibo Observatory (op-ed)

An aerial view of the massive radio dish at Arecibo Observatory after the telescope’s collapse.
(Image credit: Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images)

The collapse of the world’s most powerful radio and radar telescope didn’t kill off science at the Arecibo Observatory, but the National Science Foundation (NSF) might.

Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory began observations in 1963 and gathered crucial data for three different types of science — until December 2020, when it collapsed after two support cables failed. In October 2022, the NSF, which owns the site, announced its decision to replace the world-renowned scientific institution with a new education center and toss only pocket money in its direction. Even though NSF’s current proposed budget is up almost 20%, NSF does not plan to resurrect the telescope so Arecibo can resume its starring role, and its particular role in inspiring science and scientists in Puerto Rico.

With the decision, the NSF ignored most of what Congress charged them with in Section 10365 of the CHIPS Act: “to explore opportunities for strengthening and expanding the role of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico through education, outreach and diversity programs, and future research capabilities and technology at the site” [emphasis added].

As of now, the U.S. has lost much of its world leadership in atmospheric sciences, radar astronomy and radio astronomy. Each of these sciences bears directly on our future as a nation. In the absence of a new Arecibo Observatory, researchers must patch together observations from other facilities, but few can even partially replace Arecibo’s capacities. The Observatory provided incomparable, highly detailed mapping and tracking of near-Earth asteroids, which are of ever greater concern; atmospheric and geospace observations essential to documenting climate change and the severe weather it brings; and detailed radar views of planets and the moon for future exploration.

Related: Fallen Arecibo Observatory telescope won’t be rebuilt despite scientists’ hopes

The Observatory’s unique capabilities were evident even a few days after NSF’s short-sighted decision, announced in October, when accounts of Arecibo scientist Sean Marshall’s observations of asteroid Phaethon’s orbit filled the press on Oct. 17. His discoveries will inform the launch of a new spacecraft, as well as adding to our knowledge of a potential threat. There are 2,000 such “potentially hazardous” near-Earth asteroids, according to NASA. Arecibo has played a key role in studying many of them.

In addition, radio astronomy brings us insights into the universe, revealing fundamental physics that affects how airplanes and houses are built, how inventors approach their tasks and more. Arecibo’s work in the field has also brought surprises and illuminated mysteries, like the first discovery of a binary pulsar, which led to a Nobel Prize, and the first discovery of an exoplanet.

Sadly, radio astronomers who want anything comparable to Arecibo have only one choice: China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) telescope. Its useful surface is a little larger than Arecibo’s was, but it lacks a radar and it suffers from far more radio interference. While one hopes relations with China will improve, in the meantime it’s alarming that U. S. research data — whether it’s about planetary security, national security or deep space — will be in totalitarian hands.

“The center would be like a zoo without animals, or a biology laboratory without microscopes.”

Rather than replace Arecibo’s 1,000-foot (305 meters) dish with a cutting-edge instrument that would surpass others and meet these vital needs, the new NSF education center is supposed to inspire students and the public about STEM activities, as Arecibo has for decades.

A photo of the instrument platform of Arecibo’s radio dish before the collapse. (Image credit: University of Central Florida)

That, of course, is a fine idea. But unlike previous visitors, the new center’s students would not have a chance to stay up at night and watch blips appear on the screen, showing that 900 tons of instruments are tracking signals from distant galaxies. They wouldn’t sit next to a scientist and a telescope operator or hear their banter as they figure something out together.

The only science left at a once world-renowned institution would be piecemeal, funded only if it complements the center’s mission, with no provision for basic infrastructure or staff. The center would be like a zoo without animals, or a biology laboratory without microscopes.

Arecibo Observatory was everything to me. But I couldn’t save her / Habr

At a distance from large settlements, hidden from prying eyes by fog and hills, the world’s largest observatory, Arecibo, has been operating for many decades. It was a marvel of engineering. The mirror of the radio telescope, a 350-ton “dish” in the shape of a bowl, was assembled from about 40,000 perforated aluminum panels. The radio telescope was placed in a natural funnel with a diameter of 305 meters.

At a height of about 140 meters from the bowl was 900-ton triangular platform. It housed the equipment necessary for working with radio signals. For 60 years of its work, the telescope has made a lot of discoveries that can be called revolutionary. Unfortunately, the radio telescope was recently destroyed and cannot be restored. This article talks about what led to such a sad ending. Could the observatory have been saved? Maybe, but there were a lot of problems. They seem to have been solved, but there was an unexpected ending.

How it all began

I first visited the observatory 35 years ago when I was 12 years old. We went to visit relatives and visited Arecibo, a radio telescope located a few kilometers from the house we visited. The observatory made a huge impression on me.

In 1995 I returned there as a student. It was an exciting time. Then the observatory celebrated its 30th anniversary with a large-scale equipment upgrade. On weekdays, I analyzed the results of observations of neutron stars with Kyriaki Xiluri, one of the observatory’s staff astronomers and an expert on neutron stars. As you know, such stars, with a diameter of only a few kilometers, contain a huge amount of matter compressed to an incredible density. The mass of neutron stars often exceeds the mass of the Sun. The results of observations of such objects are a window into the micro- and macroworld, the conditions of which are fundamentally different from what we are familiar with and what we can imagine.

The size and sensitivity of the Arecibo radio telescope make it an ideal instrument for studying neutron stars. It was at this observatory that Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discovered the first binary system of neutron stars – two objects of enormous mass revolving around a common center in a small orbit. Scientists’ observations have shown that the system is losing energy, so that the stars are slowly, very slowly approaching each other, just as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. On October 1993 years, less than two years before my 10-week stay at the observatory, this work earned two scientists the Nobel Prize in Physics, which is rare enough for astronomers.

At the end of the summer, I climbed to the top of the platform above the thicket, feeling ridiculous in my orange helmet and afraid to look down. I was on top of the world. Years later, when I applied to graduate school, I tried to describe my feelings in a personal essay: I wanted to tell how those 10 weeks spent in the Arecibo mountains strengthened my desire to become an astronomer.

Gradual decline

Yes, a decade after the events described above, the decline of Arecibo began. In 2005, the National Science Foundation decided to review the list of grants given to observatories and astronomers. Then all this cost the Fund $ 190 million a year. Of course, the Foundation regularly reviewed its “portfolio” in order to make sure that there was a good balance between long-term research, which is carried out by observatories, and short-term ones, which require grants.

Unfortunately, the balance has never been perfect. The problem is that new observatories have always received funds for development, equipment, operating expenses. All this more or less coincided with the Foundation’s plans. But in the case of already existing observatories, the plans were not always fulfilled. Usually, the size of the wage fund increased year by year, and the planned budget increased accordingly. But the financing of the NSF itself has not always grown at the same pace. In the early 2000s, the Foundation asked a group of major astronomers to review existing spending, projects, and try to cut spending by $30 million.

The Arecibo Observatory then received US$10 million annually. The Commission of Astronomers immediately recommended cutting this amount to $8 million, and then, in 2011, decided to cut costs again, to $4 million. The Commission decided to encourage scientists to look for international partners who could cover part of the costs. If partners are not found, the commission recommended that Arecibo be completely closed by 2011. In general, the observatory managed to find funding and survive for another 10 years.

At that time I completed my PhD and got access to the NSF report. It was unpleasant for me to see what was proposed to be done with the observatory. Particularly irritating was the paragraph that said that Puerto Rico might want to pay for the operating costs of the observatory.

And this at a time when Puerto Rico was in deep crisis. Many state institutions did not work – simply because the budget ran out of funds. For two weeks, the state apparatus remained practically idle, about 100,000 civil servants were fired, and the government closed over 1,600 public schools. Where, according to the commission, could the state get the funds?

Puerto Rico did not yet have a strong leader in Congress, so it was impossible to lobby Arecibo’s interests. An example of such a leader is Barbara Mikulsky, who in the early 2000s lobbied for the launch of the Hubble telescope maintenance team. She succeeded, in 2009 the Hubble was repaired, and in 2007 it would simply have been decommissioned, and that’s all. With Arecibo, unfortunately, nothing happened.

Puerto Rico has no real influence in the US capital, and there is no delegation in Congress that could protect the interests of the island and its inhabitants. The island is represented by only one person, an official who can only vote on procedural matters.

Unfortunately, Puerto Rico’s financial troubles were only just beginning, so things didn’t look good for Arecibo. By 2015, 46% of the island’s population had crossed the poverty line, there was no time for science and saving the observatory.

In the summer of 2010 Columbia University offered me a job and I became a staff member. In December of the same year, I was invited by the Foundation to review the budget. Despite the efforts of the commission, the budget of the Department of Astronomical Sciences was tens of millions of US dollars below the required minimum. In addition, the construction of the state-of-the-art radio telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, was responsible for most of the allocated funds. It was necessary to finance this construction, as well as somewhere to find $16 million a year for the construction of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST).

In light of all this, the idea arose to stop funding Arecibo permanently. Then it seemed not just a good idea, but even a victory. Some funds were nevertheless allocated, but they were not enough to upgrade the degrading infrastructure or, moreover, to purchase new tools. The observatory has found new sources of funding, in particular, thanks to a program to monitor dangerous asteroids for the Earth.

Through this program, the Arecibo observatory, whose team had vast experience in studying and measuring asteroids, received about $2 million, and in 2012 – $3.5 million. This was enough to continue the operation of the facility, but not to upgrade its infrastructure.

But the Foundation continued to push for the idea of shutting down the Arecibo observatory. One of the reports calculated in detail the cost of dismantling the facility after it was decommissioned. According to the rules, the area must be restored to its original state after the cessation of operation of such an object. The authors of the report deliberately greatly underestimated the price of dismantling and subsequent work in order to show the attractiveness of the idea.

The situation worsened after Robert Kerr, who ran the observatory for many years, decided to quit. After that, the Arecibo partners refused to renew the contract and the fate of the object was decided. True, in 2017 the observatory had a chance – the University of Central Florida decided to protect the observatory. The idea was to put Arecibo funding on the University, and therefore on the State of Florida. This is a risky plan, since the University itself had no experience in managing such a large-scale facility. The state administration had to agree on this plan in order for it to become a reality.

Telescope rescue and unexpected end total

The NSF Foundation accepted Florida’s offer, agreeing not to close the facility. But here another problem appeared, even more serious than insufficient funding – Hurricane Maria. It hit Puerto Rico, causing $90 billion in damage to the entire island. The observatory was also battered – a 100-meter antenna was torn off the platform, hundreds of aluminum panels were damaged when it fell. For a long time, the equipment in the valley below the plate could only be reached by boat. Nevertheless, the radio telescope was restored to working capacity surprisingly quickly – already nine days after the hurricane subsided, the telescope continued to collect data.

Despite the hurricane, things went smoothly – Florida agreed to take over the maintenance of the telescope. Foundation scientists proposed adding a special system with cryogenic cooling to the design, which made it possible to detect new pulsars, neutron stars and show hydrogen jets near nearby galaxies. The instrument was planned to be installed in 2022. In August 2019, the Foundation provided $12.3 million for storm repairs, plus a large grant from NASA to help search for potentially Earth-threatening objects.

Trouble came from an unexpected source: one of the metal cables that supported the structure burst. He fell from a great height, slicing through all the panels in the bowl that he came across along the way. It was not a huge problem – it was just necessary to replace the cable and 250 destroyed panels.

On November 6, a transport with a new cable left for Puerto Rico. But then another one popped up. And then the Foundation, whose representatives consulted with a number of engineering companies, said that any repairs would be too dangerous. The problem is that the stability of both the platform itself and its support towers has been compromised. When it all collapsed, it was only a matter of time.

On the first of December, the final catastrophe occurred – several more cables snapped, and the platform that hung over the thicket collapsed down. It was like a bomb had been dropped on the telescope.

Today, some objects of the observatory are functioning, but everyone knows that the radio telescope will never be restored. The observatory is finished. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the footage of the disaster that destroyed Arecibo.

^{The son of the author of the article inspects the telescope in 2019}

Arecibo Observatory | this… What is the Arecibo Observatory?

This term has other meanings, see Arecibo.

Arecibo is an astronomical observatory located in Puerto Rico, 15 km from the city of Arecibo, at an altitude of 497 m above sea level. Research is being conducted by Cornell University in cooperation with the National Science Foundation (USA), observatory code “251”. The observatory is also the US National Center for Astronomy and the Ionosphere.0063 National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) ^[1]).

The Arecibo radio telescope is currently the world’s largest single aperture radio telescope. The telescope is used for research in the field of radio astronomy, atmospheric physics and radar observations of objects in the solar system.

1 Main parameters of radio telescope
2 Design features
3 History
4 Notes
5 See also
6 Links

Basic parameters of the radio telescope

Operating wavelength: from 3 cm to 1 m.
RF operating range: 50 MHz to 10 GHz
Focal length: 132.5 m.
Reflector mirror shape: spherical surface
- Reflector diameter: 304.8 m.
- Reflector mirror depth: 50.9m.
- Mirror area ≈ 73,000 m².

Design Features

The telescope’s reflector is located in a natural sinkhole and is covered with 38,778 perforated aluminum plates (approximately 1 x 2 m in size) laid on a steel cable mesh. The antenna feed is movable, suspended on 18 cables from three towers.

Radio telescope	Illuminator

The observatory has a transmitter with a power of 0. 5 MW for conducting research under the program of radar astronomy.

On November 16, 1974, the “Message of Arecibo” was sent by this transmitter.

History

Observatory view

The construction of the radio telescope began in 1960. The original purpose of the telescope was to study the Earth’s ionosphere. The author of the idea of building: Professor of Cornell University William Gordon ^[2] .

The official opening of the Arecibo Observatory took place on November 1, 1963.

Among the discoveries made at the observatory, it should be noted:

On April 7, 1964, Gordon Pettengill and R. Dyce refined the sidereal rotation period of Mercury from 88 days to 59.
In 1968, measurement of the periodicity of the pulsar in the Crab Nebula (33 ms), and similar measurements for similar objects, which made it possible to confirm the existence of neutron stars.
In 1974, Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discovered the first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993.
In 1982, the first “millisecond” pulsar, PSR J1937+21, was discovered (Don Backer, Shri Kulkarni and others). The rotation frequency of this object is 642 times per second (until 2005 it was the fastest rotating pulsar discovered).
In 1990, Alexander Volshchan discovered the pulsar PSR 1257+12, in which, upon further study, the first planets outside the solar system were discovered.
In 1994, surfaces similar in radio-reflective properties to water ice were discovered in the circumpolar regions of Mercury.
In 2003, the Yarkovsky Effect was first recorded by a group of American scientists.

The observatory in Arecibo is known to the public from several Hollywood films. The giant antenna of the observatory’s radio telescope appeared, for example, in the film “Golden Eye” from the James Bond epic and the film “Contact”, based on the novel of the same name by Carl Sagan.

Since 1999, information from this radio telescope has been received for processing by the SETI@home project, through volunteer computers connected to the Internet ^[3] .