The Arecibo radio telescope will be demolished

[TomFury13]

You know, Sean Connery never would’ve pulled a stunt like that …

[Wanderfound]

@Michael_Black

We’re used to seeing radio telescopes as parabolic dishes.

The Hole-in-the-Ground Antenna

In 1951, the leading radio astronomers at Dover Heights, John Bolton, Gordon Stanley and Bruce Slee, wanted a more powerful instrument than the 12-Yagi array, but the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics could not supply the necessary funding. They therefore decided to build a new radio telescope themselves, using a novel design. With considerable ingenuity, they spent their lunchtimes, over a three-month period excavating a 21.9-m diameter dish-shaped hole in the sand a little to the north-west of the block house. The surface was consolidated with ash, metal strips from packing cases were laid across the surface to provide reflectivity, and a mast with a dipole was erected at the centre of the antenna in order to receive the reflected radio signals. This instrument was the second-largest radio telescope in the world at the time, and by using the rotation of the Earth and altering the positioning of the aerial mast it was possible to observe different regions of the sky.

After Bolton, Stanley and Slee demonstrated that the design concept worked, the `hole-in-the ground’ antenna was extended, in 1953, to a diameter of 24.4 metres and the surface was coated with concrete and lined with wire mesh to provide a reflecting surface.

This radio telescope was used to survey the sky for radio sources, and for a detailed study of a strong radio source that was detected in the constellation of Sagittarius. The radio astronomers realised that this source (called Sagittarius A) was located at the very centre of our Galaxy! These observations gained further fame for Australia and Dover Heights when in 1958 the International Astronomical Union decided to adopt the position of Sagittarius A as the coordinate centre for the system of galactic latitude' and longitude’ that is still used today by all astronomers.

Dover Heights

[Richard_Kirk]

They just don’t build them to last these days…

The Lovell Telescope - Jodrell Bank

[Richard_Kirk]

You can make it very light. Echo 2 was 41m across (Arecibo is over 300m) but it weighed less than 100 Kg. Silver it on one side and you have a dish. You would need power and steering for an active device…

Project Echo

I remember by father pointing out Echo 2 to me in the sixties, shortly before it was due to re-enter.

[KingGhidorah]

@Brainspore

Yes but usually James Bond movies are notable for characters who have improbably advanced technolgoy, not improbably cumbersome technology.

Bond’s tech tends to be miniaturized so it fits in a watch and can be carried throughout the film, but the Bond villains tend to have gigantic tech so it’s a bigger spectacle when it blows up at the end.

[Jibareaux]

The museum is/was a really great place, I’d like to replicate the sphere that had surface images of planets projected on the inside. That was my favourite exhibit . Perhaps using Kerbal with realism mods and a big opaque ball I could build one.

[fnordius]

I suppose one other reason why Arecibo needs to be dismantled is simply being in Hurricane Alley. All those tropical storms probably fatigue the materials much more than a desert facility would suffer. And with climate change, it will only get worse.

[astrootter]

Just a thought, but if the powers that be want to do some fundraising for whatever causes they deem appropriate I would totally suggest selling little chunks of the dish to science nerds around the world. I already bought a plot of land on Mercury (called “Fahren Heights”) through and Astronomical Society of the Pacific decades ago, and I’d totally be down with owning a piece of the legendary Arecibo radio telescope.

[j9c]

@nixiebunny

However, Arecibo did a lot of different work that VLBI can’t handle, such as atmospheric and radar. It’s too bad that it’s not a whizbang field that can get funding these days.

THIS ^^^.

Dependency

Even the older, no longer shiny objects can still deliver, provide service, be repurposed. (I am sure some sk8tr out there is itching to turn it into a skate park.)

Various costs of build out, maintenance and operation of these things are embedded (or entombed) in such projects. As funding flows to the more whizbang-ier science fields, I do mourn the staggering environmental and financial sunk costs that the invariably iterative scientific process does place on the planet and society.

I know not every big old scientific instrument can be recycled perfectly. And yet, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson did a pretty good job of reusing the gear here:

Drunk History - A Sound in Space (ft. Jenny Slate and Justin Long)

ETA: grammar

[Doctor_Faustus]

So…skate park?

[Gyrofrog]

@gracchus

I remember reading about the Arecibo “ear” and seeing a picture of it in a children’s science book back in the 1970s.

I might’ve seen it in Guinness but I am guessing that I read about it in this book:

@Bozobub

VLBI (Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry)

Back in 1993 I went with my family to St. Croix and there was this gigantic dish antenna toward the eastern end of the island. It wasn’t until I had access to the Web (2 - 3 years later) that I figured out we’d seen one of these ground stations. (Specifically it was the VLBA which, now that I check, is a VLBI, but not the only VLBI.)

[AnnaTheWeird]

I have fond memories of receiving 430MHz signals in central Saskatchewan transmitted from Arecibo and bounced off the moon using a 3-ft long yagi antenna made of PVC plumbing pipe and solid-core copper wire. The telescope definitely did the heavy lifting on that one.

I understand why it’s getting decomissioned instead of repaired, but that doesn’t stop me from being a bit sad at its loss.

[euansmith]

This could make for a great end to an action/sci-fi film; with our plucky, renegade astrophysicists, attempting to decrypt the last line of a vital alien transmission, while the cables holding up their science-cabin part, one by one…

[Michael_Black]

You actually did it? I mentioned the 1964 use for ham radio, further up. But all I read was from Arecibo’s side. It just made things so much easier from tye other side.

In 1964 few were doing moonbounce, and it took a big antenna and a lot of equipment. It’s become easier, but antennas stilo matter. Though I gather nowadays there are enough hams with big antennas so those with small antennas can still do moonbounce.

In the sixties Ray Naughton in Australia did moonbounce with rohmbics, big wire antennas, he had room. Big eniugh that he could do it with only 150 watts of power. But the antenna was fixed.

[AnnaTheWeird]

Yep, though recieve only for Arecibo, I didn’t have enough power to make it through the crowd trying to get a contact. I actually have a really old video on my YouTube channel from back when I had time to play with this stuff AND make videos about it, though it is somewhat cringy and only standard def. It’s at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvYHP5q7R48 if you’re interested.

[David_Guilbeaul]

Sound like you’re familiar with this stuff, but if not: Now, amateur moonbounce is usually conducted with programs that integrate the signal over longer intervals than those normally used for human interface modes. i.e. the coding might well be Morse, but the transmission rate is very slow. Dr. Joe Taylor, a Physics Nobel Laureate, pioneered the use these modes with his WSJT software. The result is you can do moonbounce with single boom Yagi on each end. Dr. Taylor also was the person behind the “Big Ear” radio telescope of “Wow signal” fame…he also designed a wire array used by hams at HF, forget what it is called. He is K1JT

[David_Guilbeaul]

@AnnaTheWeird

Yep, though recieve only for Arecibo, I didn’t have enough power to make it through the crowd trying to get a contact. I actually have a really old video on my YouTube channel from back when I had time to play with this stuff AND make videos about it, though it is somewhat cringy and only standard def.

That was a very nice video, I hope everyone has a look at it. That was actually Joe Taylor at Arecibo, right?

[jerwin]

The cost of decommissioning the telescope was estimated at $170 million. The minimal cost of running Arecibo in survey mode was $8 million per year, leaving the interesting question of what to do with the telescope after the surveys were complete-- Arecibo can only survey so much of the sky, and the resolution is limited.

sr_report_mpsac_updated_12-1-06.pdf

Arecibo was also useful for atmospheric studies, but that disd’n’t pay the bills.

[AnnaTheWeird]

Yes, I believe that was Joe. I was hoping to be able to make a contact, but with 50W and a single short yagi it wasn’t going to happen. I did end up with about 20 countries worked on 2m with the antenna system in the video and 200w. I really want to get back into EME, but it takes so much time which the kids soak up most of these days.

[anon47741163]

The Aricebo dish was not so much a prop, as a set piece. They wanted to film someplace cool, so they twisted the story enough to incorporate a chase scene there.

If theres a way to play the Goldeneye video game in noclip mode, it might be fun to explore that version. But overthinking James Bond plotlines is just a waste of brainpower.