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From the summary: >>> The only hypothesis the committee could develop that provides a plausible but unprovable answer to all these questions and the observed s
by nonfamous 2y ago
From the summary:
>>> The only hypothesis the committee could develop that provides a plausible but unprovable answer to all these questions and the observed socket failure pattern is that the socket zinc creep was unexpectedly accelerated in the Arecibo Telescope's uniquely powerful electromagnetic radiation environment. The Arecibo Telescope cables were suspended across the beam of "the most powerful radio transmitter on Earth." The other investigations failed to note several failure patterns and provided no plausible explanation for most of them. To answer these questions with empirical evidence instead of only the inferences that can be made from the existing data, a more comprehensive and widespread forensic analysis of "good" and "bad" socket workmanship and the low-current, long-term effect on zinc creep is required.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shagie 2y ago(There was a comment that I was replying to about the realization that this was a transmitter and not just a receiver that was deleted ...) It was both. The Arecibo message was transmitted from there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message > The entire 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. There's also the field of radar astronomy (not radio astronomy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_astronomy where you bounce of a signal off of an object in the solar system (such as an asteroid) > Radar provides the ability to study the shape, size and spin state of asteroids and comets from the ground. Radar imaging has produced images with up to 7.5-meter resolution. With sufficient data, the size, shape, spin and radar albedo of the target asteroids can be extracted. > ... > In August 2020 the Arecibo Observatory (Arecibo Planetary Radar) suffered a structural cable failure, leading to the collapse of the main telescope in December of that year. > There is one remaining radar astronomy facility in regular use, the Goldstone Solar System Radar.
- Syonyk 2y agoFortunately, more novel research comes out of "Huh, that's weird... why did that happen?" than out of things behaving as expected. Though this one does seem rather baffling.
- ricksunny 2y agoI'm interested in hearimg the most speculative hypotheses as to why Arecibo Telescope's socket zinc creep proceeded so quickly compared to expectation.
- userbinator 2y agoDC can definitely cause a lot of electrolytic damage, but AC usually doesn't. Perhaps something was acting as a diode (these are easily formed from natural processes) and rectifying the signal.
- whoopdedo 2y agoThe old "Foxhole radio" trick of using a rusty razor blade as a diode comes to mind. Some metal oxide coatings are semiconducting and under the right conditions will form a Schottky barrier.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]