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The National Science Foundation released stunning video footage on Thursday capturing the exact moment when The 900-tonne platform of the Arecibo Observatory fell in the 1000 foot wide dish below. A drone was carrying out a close investigation of the cables that still held the platform above the antenna as the cables snapped on Tuesday.
Video from the huge radio telescope shows both drone footage and a view from a camera in the visitor’s center that shows the platform falling into the flat just above the jungle floor in Arecibo, Porto Rico. Two large pieces can also be seen falling from the cement towers to which the cables were attached.
Two of the cables had already broken, one in August and another in November, destabilize the telescope.
A drone was inspecting the site at the top of one of the towers, where one of the previous cable breaks had occurred, when the others suddenly broke.
The NSF had recently decided to take the telescope out of service after a second cable broke in November.
“It was a dangerous situation,” John Abruzzo, who works for an engineering consulting firm called Thornton Tomasetti who was hired by the NSF, told reporters Thursday. “These cables could have broken down at any time.”
Tuesday, they did.
NSF reports that no one was injured in the collapse and that the reception center suffered only minor damage.
The telescope, which operated for almost 60 years, served as the backdrop for a dramatic fight scene in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye starring Pierce Brosnan. He also appeared in Jodie Foster’s 1997 film Contact. But Arecibo’s true legacy lies in the many scientific discoveries he made possible. He explored pulsars, broadened our knowledge of Mercury, spotted exoplanets, and found rapid radio bursts.
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