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A massive radio telescope made famous as the backdrop for a pivotal scene in James bond The movie “GoldenEye” and other Hollywood hits were suddenly found out of order after cables mysteriously snapped and snapped in the establishment’s main course.
Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory is home to one of the world’s largest radio telescopes, acting as a giant ear for the universe. Located in the middle of a forest, the telescope listens to radio signals from other galaxies and has contributed to many breakthroughs in astronomy.
Besides tracking asteroids that could endanger the planet, the telescope has played a major role in the “SETI” program – the search for intelligent life. It was notably used by astronomer Carl Sagan to send an interstellar message.
Earlier this week, the facility was forced to shut down after a cable supporting a metal platform fell above the telescope, tearing a 100-foot gash in its giant reflector plate.
“The cable didn’t really break in the sense of some sort of cable break, but it just slipped out of its socket, which is, you know, an even stranger condition,” said the director of Arecibo Observatory, Francisco Cordova, to Jeff Glor of CBS News. .
Techs working around the clock to get the telescope back online say they are still doing evaluations to find out what exactly happened, storing the machine’s “capacity structure” and getting it right. assure that this could not lead to other problems in the future.
“So at this point we’re not, you know, we don’t really have a longer timeline for when it’s going to happen,” Cordova said.
The telescope, an essential part of ongoing research to find other planets capable of sustaining life, has survived terrestrial dangers such as hurricanes, tropical storms and earthquake. Now, the scientific community hopes to be able to recover from the mysterious damage.
“We will find a way to solve this particular problem and keep moving forward,” Cordova said. “We’ve overcome a lot of things in our 50 year history, from Hurricane Maria to the very recent earthquake eruption until now. So we’re a pretty resilient bunch here and we’re going to find a way. to keep moving forward, to do exciting science for the world. “
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