Jaw-Dropping Report Reveals Causes of Arecibo Telescope Collapse

The celebrated Arecibo Observatory successful Puerto Rico collapsed owed to a operation of decayed zinc successful the telescope’s cablegram sockets and erstwhile harm from Hurricane Maria, according to a study published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The monolithic vigor telescope’s collapse successful December 2020 marked the extremity of a prolific root of vigor astronomy data. According to the caller report, the basal origin of the telescope’s illness was “unprecedented and accelerated semipermanent zinc creep induced failure.” That nonaccomplishment occurred successful the telescope’s cablegram sockets—crucial bits of infrastructure for supporting the telescope’s 900-ton platform, which hung supra the vigor dish.

The cables began to neglect earlier the collapse. The NSF decided to demolish the dish earlier it fell, but the weakened infrastructure bushed them to the punch. The Academies’ Committee connected Analysis of Causes of Failure and Collapse of the 305-Meter Telescope astatine the Arecibo Observatory published the aptly titled report. The committee analyzed information and investigations collected and performed by the University of Central Florida and the National Science Foundation (NSF). You tin work the report online here.

The telescope’s illness successful 2020 was melodramatic arsenic it was swift. The cables suspending the telescope’s level supra the its 1,000-foot (304.8-meter) crockery snapped, causing the level to plummet down done the vigor dish. The catastrophic illness took little than 10 seconds, frankincense ending the venerated observatory’s 57 years of cognition successful bluish Puerto Rico. The Arecibo Observatory discovered caller exoplanets, created maps of different worlds, observed accelerated vigor bursts, and aided successful humankind’s hunt for beingness beyond Earth.

“The deficiency of documented interest from the contracted engineers astir the inconsequentiality of cablegram pullouts oregon the information factors betwixt Hurricane Maria successful 2017 and the nonaccomplishment is alarming.”

However, the study recovered the illness began good earlier the fateful time successful December 2020. The committee concluded that the “failure sequence” took 39 months and began with the effects of Hurricane Maria successful September 2017. Inspections pursuing the tempest recovered grounds of cablegram slippage, according to the report, but wasn’t investigated further oregon addressed by anyone. “The deficiency of documented interest from the contracted engineers astir the inconsequentiality of cablegram pullouts oregon the information factors betwixt Hurricane Maria successful 2017 and the nonaccomplishment is alarming,” the committee wrote.

But that’s not all. As the committee noted, “in implicit a period of palmy usage anterior to the Arecibo Telescope’s collapse, each the forensic investigations agreed that specified a spelter socket nonaccomplishment had ne'er been reported.” The study went on: “The lone proposal the committee could make that provides a plausible but unprovable reply … is that the socket zinc creep was unexpectedly accelerated successful the Arecibo Telescope’s uniquely almighty electromagnetic radiation environment.” In different words, the sockets’ relation successful suspending specified a almighty vigor transmitter someway contributed to the 2020 catastrophe.

In October 2022, the National Science Foundation announced that the tract would beryllium remade into a STEM-focused acquisition center, with a slated opening of 2023. But successful June 2023, the observatory officially scaled back the succession plans. In September 2023, NSF announced their organization partners to negociate the modulation of the observatory tract into an acquisition center. The tract whitethorn ne'er again cod vigor data, but it will—in immoderate form—continue its bequest arsenic an epicenter of astronomical discovery.