“We are saddened over the telescope’s loss and support the science community as they evaluate the impact of losing Arecibo’s capabilities.” “Arecibo has been a unique multidisciplinary tool that helped us explore the cosmos and our solar system, search for life, and defend Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids,” said Planetary Society chief operating officer Jennifer Vaughn. The observatory also searched for signals from intelligent life on other worlds, both directly and by piggybacking on other scientific observations. Its powerful radar could reveal the shape of near-Earth asteroids and provide detailed orbital information to determine whether such asteroids posed a threat to our planet. In addition to a wide range of astronomical discoveries, Arecibo found the first known exoplanet and created maps of water ice inside Mercury’s permanently shadowed craters. Boasting a width of 300 meters (1,000 feet), the observatory was responsible for numerous scientific achievements. Popularized in movies like Contact and GoldenEye, Arecibo was the largest full-dish telescope in the world from 1963 to 2016. The Planetary Society mourns the loss of the observatory, celebrates its achievements, and expresses concern that there is no direct replacement for its unique capabilities. It cannot be safely repaired and must be decommissioned, the National Science Foundation says. The iconic dish built into a Puerto Rican tropical forest is on the brink of collapse due to a series of support cable failures. The Arecibo Observatory radio telescope will soon be no more.
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