A significant radio telescope designed famed as the backdrop for a pivotal scene in James Bond film “GoldenEye” and other Hollywood hits was located out of the blue out of commission just after cables mysteriously snapped and smashed into the facility’s principal dish.
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is dwelling to one particular of the world’s premier radio telescopes, performing as a giant ear to the universe. Positioned in the middle of a forest, the telescope listens for radio indicators from other galaxies and has contributed to various breakthroughs in astronomy.
Aside from monitoring asteroids that could endanger the world, the telescope performed a important function in the “SETI” program — the research for smart daily life. It was notably employed by astronomer Carl Sagan to mail an interstellar message.
Before this week, the facility was pressured to close down soon after a cable supporting a metal system higher than the telescope fell, tearing a 100-foot gash in its giant reflector dish.
“The cable didn’t definitely crack in the sense of a cable kind of snapping, but it just kind of slipped from its socket, which is you know, an even weirder situation,” Arecibo Observatory Director Francisco Cordova instructed CBS News’ Jeff Glor.
Specialists operating all over the clock to get the telescope back again on line say they are nevertheless building assessments to locate what precisely took place, storing the machine’s “structure of capabilities,” and earning confident it could not direct to much more troubles in the upcoming.
“So at this place, we are not, you know, we don’t seriously have a even larger timeline of when that is going to materialize,” Cordova stated.
The telescope, a pivotal element of the ongoing search to locate other planets able of sustaining everyday living, has survived terrestrial hazards like hurricanes, tropical storms and earthquakes. Now, the scientific group hopes it can get better from the mysterious injury.
“We are going to discover a way to fix this particular concern and continue to transfer forward,” Cordova mentioned. “We have overcome a whole lot in our 50-year historical past, from Hurricane Maria to extremely the latest rash of earthquakes to now this. So we’re a very resilient bunch down listed here and we are going to determine out a way to continue on to move forward, accomplishing thrilling science for the world.”
