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With a diameter of 305 meters, the Arecibo telescope was for a long time the largest in the world
Photo: Ricardo Arduengo / AFP
For a long time, the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico was the largest in the world.
Even astronomers were amazed by the bowl, which is 305 meters in diameter.
The system first became known to the general public through the James Bond film "Golden Eye".
In the strip, one of the villains is killed after a fight against the secret agent in a fall from the instrument platform, which hovers on ropes above the telescope.
The observatory also made an appearance in the Hollywood film "Concat".
But now the operation of the plant has become too dangerous.
The radio telescope ceases to operate due to safety concerns.
Investigations by several engineering companies have shown that a catastrophic failure of the structure of the telescope is imminent, said the National Science Foundation of the USA (NSF) on Thursday.
His cables may no longer be able to carry the loads intended for them.
Repairs could put workers in potentially life-threatening situations.
In addition, there would probably be problems with the statics in the long term.
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Serious damage: crack in the bowl after a cable break
Photo: El Nuevo Dia / ZUMA Press / imago images
In August, a steel cable about three inches thick, which was holding a metal platform, broke for unknown reasons.
As it fell, it had cracked the telescope's reflector bowl about 30 meters long and damaged the dome and a platform.
In addition, there was damage caused to the observatory by Hurricane Maria 2017.
The telescope in the US Caribbean was temporarily closed for the duration of the repairs.
Then on November 6th, according to the NSF, a main cable tore.
All possibilities to save the telescope have been investigated.
Ultimately, however, the data showed that repairs cannot be carried out safely.
Now preparations are being made to dismantle the telescope, it said.
The aim is to preserve as much of the remaining infrastructure of the observatory as possible for future research and educational purposes.
Radio telescopes collect radio waves from space.
The radio signals are sent from the bowl to a receiver and processed by computers and converted into images.
The telescope in Puerto Rico was the largest in the world until 2016, when the “Fast”, a dish half a kilometer in diameter, went into operation in China.
It was inaugurated in 1963 and until the end it was still one of the most sensitive facilities in astronomy.
In 1974 the US researchers Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discovered with Arecibo the double pulsar PSR 1913 + 16 - two orbiting neutron stars - and indirectly observed gravitational waves with it.
For this they later received the Nobel Prize.
In addition, researchers for Seti programs searched for radio signals from extraterrestrials and they discovered exoplanets.
It has happened before that radio telescopes collapse.
In 1988 the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, USA collapsed.
It was rebuilt later.
Icon: The mirror
joe / dpa
