
Arecibo radio telescope goes dark after snapped cable shreds dish - rmason
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/arecibo-radio-telescope-goes-dark-after-snapped-cable-shreds-dish
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JshWright
Scott Manley posted an excellent video with some discussion of this incident,
as well as going over some of the major contributions Arecibo has made to
science.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V3VCt24tkE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V3VCt24tkE)

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Natales
This is sad. Puerto Rico has already been hit hard so many times. Agree or
not, the observatory has a prominent place in pop culture, which helps bring
the much needed visitors, and with them, awareness of Space Research and
Science in general, in a time when sparking interest in STEM in the next
generation is so important.

~~~
joe_the_user
It's tragic. Unfortunately, it's easy to see things like this in terms of a
pattern of neglected infrastructure in the US. Puerto Rico in general has been
damaged and neglected to a criminal extent - this particular situation will
get media attention for a bit, maybe be fixed but that's likely about it.

~~~
mturmon
In this case, it's a complex story. NSF has a collection of astronomical
observatories (optical and radio).

Some of them have decades-old equipment, and keeping everything operating will
eventually preclude building anything new. So, NSF has been trying to offload
some older observatories to universities, or consortia of universities -
Arecibo is one such.

For instance, some older solar observatories were taken offline to build DKIST
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Inouye_Solar_Telesco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Inouye_Solar_Telescope)),
which is an amazing instrument, just now coming online.

Of course, there is a lot of strife and anger caused by reallocation of
resources like this.

~~~
dylan604
I'm on my way to look up DKIST, but after SOHO, it's hard to imagine needing
ground based solar observatories. Of course, SOHO will eventually come to end
of mission, so we definitely need other observatories. It's just the SOHO
imagery is stellar.

~~~
mturmon
You’re a little out of date! SoHO is largely shut down, has been for a decade
now. Its tent pole instruments were replaced by SDO in 2010.
([https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/](https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/))

Both of these are NASA, not NSF, observatories. They were (SoHO) and are (SDO)
amazing resources that have advanced the whole area of heliophysics.

DKIST (NSF) has a 4m aperture. Unbelievable for a solar telescope, and of
course, impossible to fly under reasonable NASA heliophysics budgets.

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supernova87a
Story has been posted already 2 other times in the last 2 days?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129199)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24128877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24128877)

~~~
arthurcolle
I didn't see it the first two times, so I'm happy it was posted again.

~~~
bookofjoe
ditto

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jcims
According to this paper [1] each of those panels is ~3x6 feet (presumably
1x2m) and RMS surface error across the primary surface of the antenna is ~5mm

[http://gancell.com/papers/CMSC%202001_Final.pdf](http://gancell.com/papers/CMSC%202001_Final.pdf)

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mastazi
> some steering is possible by moving the receivers, or antennas, around a
> platform suspended by cables high above the dish. The cable that broke this
> week was not one of the main support cables but one of several auxiliary
> ones added in the 1990s to stabilize the platform when a large new antenna,
> known as the Gregorian dome, was added.

If anyone is curious, in this article there is a picture where you can see the
suspended platform with the "Gregorian dome":

[https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901920638/puerto-ricos-
arecib...](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901920638/puerto-ricos-arecibo-
radio-telescope-damaged-by-falling-cable)

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bargle0
The thing that’s crazy about Arecibo is that it’s not just a telescope — it’s
also a very high power transmitter, so they’re doing astronomy with RADAR. I
didn’t know such a thing was even possible until this week.

~~~
kzrdude
Cool, so what do they target? It must be something reasonably close. Though I
realize even light year reflections are possible!

~~~
acqq
> so what do they target?

Traditionally, Moon, Venus, asteroids.

Also:

[https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Radiation_astronomy/Radars#A...](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Radiation_astronomy/Radars#Arecibo_Observatory)

"the round trip light time to objects beyond Saturn is longer than the time
the telescope can track it, preventing radar observations of more distant
objects."

Also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message)

"The Arecibo message is a 1974 interstellar radio message carrying basic
information about humanity and Earth sent to globular star cluster M13. It was
meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a
real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials."

"The message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes,
transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the
frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 450 kW. The "ones" and "zeros" were
transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second. The total
broadcast was less than three minutes."

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unsrsly
This dish was in the movie Goldeneye and apparently a lot of other films as
well.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory)

~~~
umvi
This dish is also the final level of the Nintendo 64 "Goldeneye" game -
"Cradle"

~~~
LolWolf
It was also in Battlefield 4 ("Rogue Transmission")

~~~
cptskippy
No it isn't. The BF4 campaign takes place in China. The map for Rogue
Transmission is a fictional location in Guizhou Province in southwest China.

~~~
ajmurmann
Is it fictional or based on the larger, similar looking Five-hundred meter
Aperture Spherical Telescope located in Guizhou? See:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-
meter_Aperture_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-
meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope)

~~~
cptskippy
It's fictional, the overall design of the cable towers is taken from
Arecibo's, FAST's towers are distinctly different. It's clearly neither though
as the surrounding topology is flat and mostly devoid of trees, both FAST and
Arecibo are nestled in valleys dense in foliage. That sort of layout doesn't
play well in video games.

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markrages
For the benefit of other engineers who have not read the article:

The damage was done by a wire rope, not an electrical cable.

~~~
oasisbob
Glad I'm not the only one who initially read "cable" as more likely to be
electrical than structural.

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liv-io
Arecibo? Makes me want to listen to Carbon Based Lifeforms:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifiICunJ-
ZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifiICunJ-ZA)

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rmason
I've always been fascinated by the Arecibo Observatory. There was a ham radio
operator who was an early employee there. I met him at the Dayton Ham
convention in the early seventies.

I planned a trip to Puerto Rico around ten years later. Unfortunately I
suffered bad food poisoning on Guadeloupe and by the time I got to San Juan I
was so ill that I had to cut out the trip to Arecibo. Still want to see it
someday.

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ChaseT
What a shame, especially that the dome reflector was damaged too. I remember
visiting in person and being awestruck by the sheer size and engineering skill
needed to make this. Plus it provides needed tourism revenue for PR; I hope
it's not abandoned.

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HumblyTossed
Pretty sad that this happened. It is rather iconic.

Interesting, though, I did not realize my Alma Mater took over management of
it.

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WarOnPrivacy
These are the first pics of the underside I've ever seen. I'd like to see more
of the infrastructure.

~~~
dylan604
Watch the movie Contact. There's an entire scene underneath the dome.

also:
[http://www.mreclipse.com/Observatory/Arecibo/full/Arecibo03-...](http://www.mreclipse.com/Observatory/Arecibo/full/Arecibo03-118w.JPG)

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waheoo
> Typically, such cables don’t fail in that way, which is “concerning,” he
> says.

Definitely aliens covering their tracks.

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markus_zhang
Is it the same one in x files e2m1? Sorry I meant s2e1 ahem

~~~
knodi123
Yes. Arecibo is mentioned in the episode description, and the x-files episode
is mention on the Arecibo wiki page.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751154/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751154/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory)

~~~
markus_zhang
Thanks! Good memory here...

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unixhero
Is it over for Arecibo then?

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api
Just in time for the thing for which Oumuamua was a spent deceleration
stage... :)

~~~
lambdatronics
Came here to make alien attack joke.

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thelittleone
Wow the extent of the damage is surprising. Seems like a pretty big design
oversight. If one broken cable can cause such damage, there should be
redundancy built in. One extra cable. "One is none, two is one". From the
luxury of my hindsight chair.

~~~
dylan604
A 3" cable of this type is not an insignificant thing. Have you ever seen the
cables used to support telephone poles? Those are maybe 3/8" (working from
memory). If you are a teenager running in the dark at full speed at night
while attempting to evade being caught papering a friends house and catch one
of these cables across your neck, you're going to have a very bad night. I've
seen the results.

The damage isn't from something failing because there was no other support
after this cable failed. It was this failing cable falling back to the ground
that did the damage. If it were an object like a rock, it would just drop
straight-ish down to make a hole where it impacts. This is a cable that would
make that initial impact hole, but would continue to do damage as it was
pulled into its final resting spot.

~~~
coolgeek
Oof... I caught one of those phone pole cables on the forehead running in the
dark one night, and I caught the guy wire of a soccer net/goal under the chin
one day during practice. Both very unpleasant experiences

