4 ms·

"now" is doing a lot of work here... If I'm not mistaken, we have about a millennium or a hundred make arrangements.

dylan604 6y ago
the lack of interest in funding Arecibo at a level to even do maintenance to prevent this from happening suggests we won't bother within that millennium you are allowing.
- macksd 6y ago
  Would normal maintenance have prevented this? My understanding from the initial reports is that they were unable to identify any flaw or anomaly in the steel cable that snapped that would have indicated the problem ahead of time, and that it simply wasn't designed to tolerate a failure of that nature. Sounds like a freak accident to me.
est31 6y ago
Overall it's quite a bright time for (radio) astronomy. The number of telescopes and sensing ability only increases with time. Just this year alone, a large clone of Arecibo, FAST, just became fully operational. Other telescopes like the SKA are still in construction. In the future decades, we'll likely build even more and even larger telescopes.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  FAST is not a clone. It is a very big and powerful dish, but Arecibo could do things that FAST cannot (radar astronomy). Just like particle accelerators, no two telescopes are ever identical in capabilities/missions. FASTs other difference is location: China. The community of people who would work at Arecibo is probably very different than the community that will work at FAST.
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
The Arecibo message was sent out 46 years ago, in 1974 [1]. We'd only miss responses from potential respondents who are between 23 and (23 + (time to build replacement / 2)) light-years away. Fortunately, the message was sent to globular cluster M13, which is 22,000 light years away. As long as we get it done by the 47th millenium AD we should be fine. Unfortunately, applying Parkinson's law to that task means we've got a lot of work to do! [1] Side note: It somehow never ceases to amaze me how very year, my mental shortcut for approximating the number of years since a given date by subtracting it from 2000 gets less and less accurate.
- dylan604 6y ago
  >[1] Side note: It somehow never ceases to amaze me how very year, my mental shortcut for approximating the number of years since a given date by subtracting it from 2000 gets less and less accurate. Remember when partying like it was 1999 was something to achieve? The one that gets me every year is my graduation date from high school gets further away. It is now more easily measured in decades.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> Fortunately, the message was sent to globular cluster M13, which is 22,000 light years away. Unfortunately, the message was aimed at where M13 appears to us today. By the time the message gets there it will have moved. The message was, is, doomed to miss.

the lack of interest in funding Arecibo at a level to even do maintenance to prevent this from happening suggests we won't bother within that millennium you are allowing.

macksd 6y ago
Would normal maintenance have prevented this? My understanding from the initial reports is that they were unable to identify any flaw or anomaly in the steel cable that snapped that would have indicated the problem ahead of time, and that it simply wasn't designed to tolerate a failure of that nature. Sounds like a freak accident to me.

est31 6y ago

Overall it's quite a bright time for (radio) astronomy. The number of telescopes and sensing ability only increases with time. Just this year alone, a large clone of Arecibo, FAST, just became fully operational. Other telescopes like the SKA are still in construction. In the future decades, we'll likely build even more and even larger telescopes.

sandworm101 6y ago
FAST is not a clone. It is a very big and powerful dish, but Arecibo could do things that FAST cannot (radar astronomy). Just like particle accelerators, no two telescopes are ever identical in capabilities/missions. FASTs other difference is location: China. The community of people who would work at Arecibo is probably very different than the community that will work at FAST.

LeifCarrotson 6y ago

The Arecibo message was sent out 46 years ago, in 1974 [1]. We'd only miss responses from potential respondents who are between 23 and (23 + (time to build replacement / 2)) light-years away. Fortunately, the message was sent to globular cluster M13, which is 22,000 light years away. As long as we get it done by the 47th millenium AD we should be fine. Unfortunately, applying Parkinson's law to that task means we've got a lot of work to do! [1] Side note: It somehow never ceases to amaze me how very year, my mental shortcut for approximating the number of years since a given date by subtracting it from 2000 gets less and less accurate.

dylan604 6y ago
>[1] Side note: It somehow never ceases to amaze me how very year, my mental shortcut for approximating the number of years since a given date by subtracting it from 2000 gets less and less accurate. Remember when partying like it was 1999 was something to achieve? The one that gets me every year is my graduation date from high school gets further away. It is now more easily measured in decades.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> Fortunately, the message was sent to globular cluster M13, which is 22,000 light years away. Unfortunately, the message was aimed at where M13 appears to us today. By the time the message gets there it will have moved. The message was, is, doomed to miss.