7 ms·

Second cable breaks at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo telescope

217 points by yawz 6y ago

wolfram74 6y ago
Might be time to start working on a replacement https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  That's a really clever construction method. No humans needed!
- eb0la 6y ago
  I wonder if it's feasible to build more than one. Y'know for not having all eggs in the same basket.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    apologies for the poor video quality, but why build one, when you can have two for twice the cost? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM
    - jcims 6y ago
      First thing that came to mind!!! I was so drawn into that movie the first time around, that phrase will forever be etched into my memory. :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  China were FASTer: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/China-to-open-its-FAST-telescope-to-global-scientists-next-year-Vb6yF39YJy/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/China-to-open-its-FAST...
  - jonwachob91 6y ago
    You should checkout the link wolfram74 posted... China built an earth based one, wolfram74 posted a link to a moon based one that JPL proposed for funding.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      I did. I'm also aware TFA mentions FAST. Point remains a larger dish exists and is operational.
mobilio 6y ago
It's amazing that antenna tower weight is 900 tons! Could this be built using some lightweight composite materials?
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Yeah, sure, for way more money than it would take to maintain the cables.
  - mobilio 6y ago
    Maintain and replacing cables is OK. But tomorrow weight of this tower with new equipment there can become 1000t. And new cables need to be installed. And so on.
    - bronson 6y ago
      That’s even more true of a highly weight-optimized assembly.
- delfinom 6y ago
  New problem, hurricane now blows away the tower instead of snapping a cable.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  The scale is incredible. That's just the receiver platform suspended in the air that weighs 900 tons, not a tower. It's 100 meters "long", longer than a 747 and 3 times as heavy. It's like a steel road or rail bridge hanging in the air.
cblconfederate 6y ago
one could say it is falling apart
magicalhippo 6y ago
I recently watched an interesting talk[1] about the NANOGrav project which looks for extremely low-frequency gravitational waves. The sources for these would be super-massive binary black holes, unlike the compact binaries ("regular" black holes and neutrons) that LIGO can observe. They use radio telescopes to look for disturbances in the timing of millisecond pulsars due to gravitational waves, and they get about half of their data from Arecibo. The project has been going for almost 15 years and they had just begun to see interesting stuff in their data. As the the project relies on continuous measurements of the pulsars, in order to detect variations in their timing, the presenter mentioned that more than six months of downtime would have a significant impact on the quality of their their overall data, and as mentioned on their page[2] many of the pulsars can only be measured by the Arecibo telescope due to its sensitivity. [1]: http://pirsa.org/20100068/ http://pirsa.org/20100068/ [2]: http://nanograv.org/announcement/2020/08/20/Arecibo.html http://nanograv.org/announcement/2020/08/20/Arecibo.html
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Observatories come and observatories go [1]. It would be logical to have a transition plan to migrate science projects as old observatories are decommissioned and new ones turned up. Arecibo could go dark tomorrow due to disrepair (antenna assembly fails entirely, and 900 tons of suspended gear is going to do some serious damage upon failure) and the cost to repair and recommission is greater than available funds from UCF and NSF. Edit: dredmorbius mentions in a comment below China has built a better observatory for this type of science [2]. Retask remaining science to other assets, decommission Arecibo. [1] https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/astronomy/facilities.jsp https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/astronomy/facilitie... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046772
  - sitkack 6y ago
    Could we have a building that is both a sports field and a device for doing cosmology? I would call it, "The Astro Dome"
    - 6y ago
greatgib 6y ago
Did they not think about creating an emergency crowdfunding donation campaign to try to raise funds?
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Fundamental research should not depend on crowdfunding!
  - dylan604 6y ago
    what, it should depend on private corporate funding instead? or maybe solely depend on the crumbs provided from government funding? if private citizens want to contribute money, i'm guessing most research teams starving for funding would not be opposed.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      Research, especially fundamental research, should have stable multi year funding by the government. The current way, with many researchers being forced to spend more time on grant hunting than researching or teaching, and focus not dictated by scientific needs but by political aims (NASA!), and young researchers being ruthlessly exploited, is unsustainable. Just compare the structures back when science, research and progress were taken seriously to now. It was the US government that gave humanity lasers, Internet, integrated circuits, battery tech, databases (Oracle!), satellite-based data gathering - almost all of what modern life grants us was founded back decades ago by massive government/military research programs. Side note: this is also valid for Europe. We have all lost our collective focus to progress and advance to corporate greed and minimalist-government theories, while China has picked up the slack. The 21st century, I fear, will belong to China thanks to the collective actions of the last 30 years.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        I don't think anyone receiving gov't funding would consider it stable. Every year, people have to justify their funding at the risk of having the funding removed. I have quasi-personal experience with the withdrawing of funding when Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider. They killed it the same year that I was in high school and was going to spend time as an intern as several of my older classmates had done. I know we're speaking the same base. Science funding is woefully short for pure scientific research endeavors. The US gave up on the race for discovery a long long time ago before I was born. The "why?" must always be backed up with a solid money making something. "Why?" can no longer be "because we don't know what we might find out" for a response that will get funded.
flatline 6y ago
Years ago my ex and I went to PR on vacation. Spent most of our time on Vieques, fantastic trip, but when we were still on the big island I dragged us all the way out to Arecibo. My wife was confused, there's nothing out there except some sort of observatory? It turned out to be our favorite part of the trip, they gave a good mini tour but seeing the thing in person was absolutely awe-inspiring.
- teachrdan 6y ago
  Fun fact: Vieques was a US Navy bombing range for 60 years, which included several cases where Navy planes accidentally dropped bombs on civilian homes nearby. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/vieques-invisible-health-crisis/498428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/vieques...
  - macintux 6y ago
    West Wing fans are quite familiar with that.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > Fun fact > US Navy bombing range > accidentally dropped bombs on civilian homes nearby > Puerto Rico’s Invisible Health Crisis > military’s activities caused illnesses > The Navy eventually conceded to using heavy metals and toxic chemicals like depleted uranium and Agent Orange on the island We clearly have very different definitions of "fun". But thanks for sharing, interesting reading!
    - morsch 6y ago
      Sometimes people use words and don't really mean what they literally mean.
  - 8bitsrule 6y ago
    Starting in 1941. And they left a toxic mess behind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,_Puerto_Rico#Health_risk_speculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,...
unzadunza 6y ago
This observatory taught me a life lesson: after finally beating Trevelyan after 100s of attempts I learned I'll never be very good at video games.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  All oddjob, slappers only, one hit kill, at the observatory.

217 points by yawz 6y ago

Might be time to start working on a replacement https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...

ceejayoz 6y ago
That's a really clever construction method. No humans needed!
eb0la 6y ago
I wonder if it's feasible to build more than one. Y'know for not having all eggs in the same basket.
- walrus01 6y ago
  apologies for the poor video quality, but why build one, when you can have two for twice the cost? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et4sMJP9FmM
  - jcims 6y ago
    First thing that came to mind!!! I was so drawn into that movie the first time around, that phrase will forever be etched into my memory. :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dredmorbius 6y ago
China were FASTer: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/China-to-open-its-FAST-telescope-to-global-scientists-next-year-Vb6yF39YJy/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/China-to-open-its-FAST...
- jonwachob91 6y ago
  You should checkout the link wolfram74 posted... China built an earth based one, wolfram74 posted a link to a moon based one that JPL proposed for funding.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    I did. I'm also aware TFA mentions FAST. Point remains a larger dish exists and is operational.

mobilio 6y ago

It's amazing that antenna tower weight is 900 tons! Could this be built using some lightweight composite materials?

jjoonathan 6y ago
Yeah, sure, for way more money than it would take to maintain the cables.
- mobilio 6y ago
  Maintain and replacing cables is OK. But tomorrow weight of this tower with new equipment there can become 1000t. And new cables need to be installed. And so on.
  - bronson 6y ago
    That’s even more true of a highly weight-optimized assembly.
delfinom 6y ago
New problem, hurricane now blows away the tower instead of snapping a cable.
lopmotr 6y ago
The scale is incredible. That's just the receiver platform suspended in the air that weighs 900 tons, not a tower. It's 100 meters "long", longer than a 747 and 3 times as heavy. It's like a steel road or rail bridge hanging in the air.

cblconfederate 6y ago

one could say it is falling apart

magicalhippo 6y ago

I recently watched an interesting talk[1] about the NANOGrav project which looks for extremely low-frequency gravitational waves. The sources for these would be super-massive binary black holes, unlike the compact binaries ("regular" black holes and neutrons) that LIGO can observe. They use radio telescopes to look for disturbances in the timing of millisecond pulsars due to gravitational waves, and they get about half of their data from Arecibo. The project has been going for almost 15 years and they had just begun to see interesting stuff in their data. As the the project relies on continuous measurements of the pulsars, in order to detect variations in their timing, the presenter mentioned that more than six months of downtime would have a significant impact on the quality of their their overall data, and as mentioned on their page[2] many of the pulsars can only be measured by the Arecibo telescope due to its sensitivity. [1]: http://pirsa.org/20100068/ http://pirsa.org/20100068/ [2]: http://nanograv.org/announcement/2020/08/20/Arecibo.html http://nanograv.org/announcement/2020/08/20/Arecibo.html

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Observatories come and observatories go [1]. It would be logical to have a transition plan to migrate science projects as old observatories are decommissioned and new ones turned up. Arecibo could go dark tomorrow due to disrepair (antenna assembly fails entirely, and 900 tons of suspended gear is going to do some serious damage upon failure) and the cost to repair and recommission is greater than available funds from UCF and NSF. Edit: dredmorbius mentions in a comment below China has built a better observatory for this type of science [2]. Retask remaining science to other assets, decommission Arecibo. [1] https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/astronomy/facilities.jsp https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/astronomy/facilitie... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046772
- sitkack 6y ago
  Could we have a building that is both a sports field and a device for doing cosmology? I would call it, "The Astro Dome"
  - 6y ago

greatgib 6y ago

Did they not think about creating an emergency crowdfunding donation campaign to try to raise funds?

mschuster91 6y ago
Fundamental research should not depend on crowdfunding!
- dylan604 6y ago
  what, it should depend on private corporate funding instead? or maybe solely depend on the crumbs provided from government funding? if private citizens want to contribute money, i'm guessing most research teams starving for funding would not be opposed.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    Research, especially fundamental research, should have stable multi year funding by the government. The current way, with many researchers being forced to spend more time on grant hunting than researching or teaching, and focus not dictated by scientific needs but by political aims (NASA!), and young researchers being ruthlessly exploited, is unsustainable. Just compare the structures back when science, research and progress were taken seriously to now. It was the US government that gave humanity lasers, Internet, integrated circuits, battery tech, databases (Oracle!), satellite-based data gathering - almost all of what modern life grants us was founded back decades ago by massive government/military research programs. Side note: this is also valid for Europe. We have all lost our collective focus to progress and advance to corporate greed and minimalist-government theories, while China has picked up the slack. The 21st century, I fear, will belong to China thanks to the collective actions of the last 30 years.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      I don't think anyone receiving gov't funding would consider it stable. Every year, people have to justify their funding at the risk of having the funding removed. I have quasi-personal experience with the withdrawing of funding when Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider. They killed it the same year that I was in high school and was going to spend time as an intern as several of my older classmates had done. I know we're speaking the same base. Science funding is woefully short for pure scientific research endeavors. The US gave up on the race for discovery a long long time ago before I was born. The "why?" must always be backed up with a solid money making something. "Why?" can no longer be "because we don't know what we might find out" for a response that will get funded.

flatline 6y ago

Years ago my ex and I went to PR on vacation. Spent most of our time on Vieques, fantastic trip, but when we were still on the big island I dragged us all the way out to Arecibo. My wife was confused, there's nothing out there except some sort of observatory? It turned out to be our favorite part of the trip, they gave a good mini tour but seeing the thing in person was absolutely awe-inspiring.

teachrdan 6y ago
Fun fact: Vieques was a US Navy bombing range for 60 years, which included several cases where Navy planes accidentally dropped bombs on civilian homes nearby. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/vieques-invisible-health-crisis/498428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/vieques...
- macintux 6y ago
  West Wing fans are quite familiar with that.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > Fun fact > US Navy bombing range > accidentally dropped bombs on civilian homes nearby > Puerto Rico’s Invisible Health Crisis > military’s activities caused illnesses > The Navy eventually conceded to using heavy metals and toxic chemicals like depleted uranium and Agent Orange on the island We clearly have very different definitions of "fun". But thanks for sharing, interesting reading!
  - morsch 6y ago
    Sometimes people use words and don't really mean what they literally mean.
- 8bitsrule 6y ago
  Starting in 1941. And they left a toxic mess behind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,_Puerto_Rico#Health_risk_speculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,...

unzadunza 6y ago

This observatory taught me a life lesson: after finally beating Trevelyan after 100s of attempts I learned I'll never be very good at video games.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
earthboundkid 6y ago
All oddjob, slappers only, one hit kill, at the observatory.