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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – The giant, aging cables that support one of the world’s largest single-antenna radio telescopes are slowly unraveling in this U.S. territory, pushing an observatory renowned for its key role in astronomical discoveries at sea of collapse.
The Arecibo Observatory, which is attached over a sinkhole in the lush mountainous region of Puerto Rico, has a 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish featured in Jodie Foster’s film “Contact” and the James Bond film “GoldenEye”. The dish and a dome hanging above it were used to track asteroids on their way to Earth, to conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize, and to help scientists try to determine if a planet is habitable.
“As someone who depends on Arecibo for my science, I’m scared. It is a very worrying situation at the moment. There is a possibility of catastrophic cascading failure, ”said astronomer Scott Ransom of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, a collaboration of American and Canadian scientists.
Last week, one of the telescope’s main steel cables, capable of supporting 1.2 million pounds (544,000 kilograms), fell below just 624,000 pounds (283,000 kilograms). The failure further mutilated the reflector dish after an auxiliary cable broke in August, tearing a 100-foot hole and damaging the dome above.
Officials said they were surprised as they assessed the structure in August and believed it could handle the change in weight based on previous inspections.
It’s a big blow to the telescope that more than 250 scientists around the world were using. The establishment is also one of Puerto Rico’s top tourist attractions, attracting some 90,000 visitors annually. Research has been on hold since August, including a project helping scientists find nearby galaxies.
The telescope was built in the 1960s and funded by the Department of Defense as part of a campaign to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses. It has endured more than half a century of disasters, including hurricanes and earthquakes. Repairs for Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, were still underway when the first cable broke.
Some new cables are expected to arrive next month, but officials said funding for the repairs had not been established with federal agencies. Scientists warn that time is running out. Only a handful of cables now support the 900 ton platform.
“Each of the remaining cables in the structure is now supporting more weight than before, increasing the likelihood of another cable failure, which would likely cause the entire structure to collapse,” the University of Central Florida said, who manages the installation, declaration Friday.
University officials say crews have already noticed wire breaks on two of the remaining main cables. They warn employees and contractors are at risk despite relying heavily on drones and remote cameras to assess damage.
The observatory assesses the damage at more than $ 12 million and is seeking funds from the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that owns the observatory.
Foundation spokesperson Rob Margetta said the engineering and cost estimates were not complete and funding for the repairs would likely involve Congress and discussions with stakeholders. He said the agency was reviewing “all recommendations for action to Arecibo”.
“NSF is ultimately responsible for decisions regarding the security of the structure,” he said in an email. “Our top priority is the safety of everyone on the site.”
Representatives from the university and the observatory said the telescope’s director, Francisco Córdova, was unavailable for comment. In a Facebook post, the observatory said maintenance was up to date and the last external structural assessment took place after Hurricane Maria.
The most recent damage was likely the result of cable degradation over time and additional weight after the auxiliary cable broke, the university said. In August, the outlet containing this cable broke, possibly due to a manufacturing error, the observatory said.
The problems have interrupted the work of researchers like Edgard Rivera-Valentín, a scientist with the Association for University Space Research at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas. He had planned to study Mars in September when it approached Earth closely.
“This is the closest Mars that was going to be while also being observable from Arecibo until 2067,” he said. “I won’t be here the next time we can get this level of radar data.”
The Puerto Rico Observatory is considered crucial for the study of pulsars, which are the remnants of stars that can be used to detect gravitational waves, a phenomenon that Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of general relativity. The telescope is also used to search for neutral hydrogen, which can reveal how certain cosmic structures are formed.
“It’s over 50 years old, but it’s still a very important instrument,” said Alex Wolszczan, Polish-born astronomer and professor at Pennsylvania State University.
He helped discover the first extrasolar and pulsar planets and credited the observatory with having a culture that allowed him to test what he described as wild ideas that sometimes worked.
“Losing it would be a really huge blow to what I think is a very important science,” Wolszczan said.
Astronomer at the observatory in the 1980s and early 1990s, Wolszczan still uses the telescope for some work because it offers an unparalleled combination of high frequency range and sensitivity which he says allows for a “wide range” of scientific projects. Among them: the observation of molecules of life, the detection of radio emissions from stars and the realization of pulsar work.
The telescope was also a training ground for graduate students and widely appreciated for its educational opportunities, said Carmen Pantoja, astronomer and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, the island’s largest public university.
She relied on it for her doctoral thesis and remembered looking at it in amazement when she was a young girl.
“I was struck by how big and mysterious it was,” she said. “The future of the telescope largely depends on the position of the National Science Foundation … I hope they can find a way and there will be goodwill to save it.”
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