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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arecibo Telescope | 6/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Telescope | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:15:38.928164+00:00 | kb-cron |
In 1974, the Arecibo message, an attempt to communicate with potential extraterrestrial life, was transmitted from the radio telescope toward the globular cluster Messier 13, about 25,000 light-years away. The 1,679 bit pattern of 1s and 0s defined a 23 by 73 pixel bitmap image that included numbers, stick figures, chemical formulas and a crude image of the telescope.
=== SETI and METI projects ===
Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is the search for extraterrestrial life or advanced technologies. SETI aims to answer the question "Are we alone in the Universe?" by scanning the skies for transmissions from intelligent civilizations elsewhere in our galaxy. In comparison, METI (messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence) refers to the active search by transmitting messages. Arecibo was the source of data for the SETI@home and Astropulse distributed computing projects put forward by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and was used for the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix observations. The Einstein@Home distributed computing project has found more than 20 pulsars in Arecibo data.
=== Other uses === Terrestrial aeronomy experiments at Arecibo included the Coqui 2 experiment, supported by NASA. The telescope also originally had military intelligence uses, including locating Soviet radar installations by detecting their signals bouncing off the Moon. Limited amateur radio operations were carried out, using Moon bounce or Earth–Moon–Earth communication, in which radio signals aimed at the Moon are reflected back to Earth. The first of these operations was on June 13–14, 1964, using the call sign KP4BPZ. A dozen or so two-way contacts were made on 144 and 432 MHz. On July 3 and 24, 1965, KP4BPZ was again activated on 432 MHz, making approximately 30 contacts on 432 MHz during the limited time slots available. For these tests, a very wide-band instrumentation recorder captured a large segment of the receiving bandwidth, enabling later verification of other amateur station call signs. These were not two-way contacts. From April 16–18, 2010, the Arecibo Amateur Radio Club KP4AO again conducted Moon-bounce activity using the antenna. On November 10, 2013, the KP4AO Arecibo Amateur Radio Club conducted a Fifty-Year Commemoration Activation, lasting seven hours on 14.250 MHz SSB, without using the main dish antenna.
== Cultural significance == Due to its unique shape and concept, the telescope had been featured in many contemporary works. It serves as one of the central locations in The Sparrow, a science fiction novel written by Mary Doria Russell. It was used as a filming location in the films GoldenEye (1995), Species (1995), and Contact (1997) (based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same name, which also featured the observatory), The Losers (2010), , as the climatic battleground against Ultron in Season 3 of ’’Avengers Assemble’’and in The X-Files television episode "Little Green Men". One map in the 2013 video game Battlefield 4, while set in China, is based on the distinctive layout of the Arecibo Telescope. In 2014, a video art installation piece titled The Great Silence by artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla in collaboration with science fiction writer Ted Chiang featured the radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory to represent the search for extraterrestrial life. The next year, Chiang published a novelette also called The Great Silence. The juxtaposed text was later published as a short story with the same title in a special issue of the art journal e-flux in 2015 and was included in the author's short story collection Exhalation: Stories in 2019. The asteroid 4337 Arecibo is named after the observatory by Steven J. Ostro, in recognition of the observatory's contributions to the characterization of Solar System bodies.
== See also == List of radio telescopes Lunar Crater Radio Telescope - a proposed project by NIAC to place a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon Orgov Radio-Optical Telescope
== References ==
== Further reading == Friedlander, Blaine (November 14, 1997). "Research rockets, including an experiment from Cornell, are scheduled for launch into the ionosphere next year from Puerto Rico". Cornell University. Ruiz, Carmelo (March 3, 1998). "Activists protest US Navy radar project". Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Archived from the original on May 1, 2001. Amir Alexander (July 3, 2008). "Budget Cuts Threaten Arecibo Observatory". The Planetary Society. Archived from the original on July 21, 2008. Blaine Friedlander (June 10, 2008). "Arecibo joins global network to create 6,000-mile (9,700 km) telescope". EurekAlert. Lauren Gold (June 5, 2008). "Clintons (minus Hillary) visit Arecibo; former president urges more federal funding for basic sciences". Cornell university. Henry Fountain (December 25, 2007). "Arecibo Radio Telescope Is Back in Business After 6-Month Spruce-Up". New York Times. Entry into the National Register of Historic Places Cohen, Marshall H. (2009). "Genesis of the 1000-foot Arecibo Dish". Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. 12 (2): 141–152. Bibcode:2009JAHH...12..141C. doi:10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2009.02.06. S2CID 18990068. PDF Altschuler, Daniel R.; Salter, Christopher J. (2013). "The Arecibo Observatory: Fifty astronomical years". Physics Today. 66 (11): 43. Bibcode:2013PhT....66k..43A. doi:10.1063/PT.3.2179.
== External links ==
Official website Youtube video of collapse 12.56 mins The wondrous life—and dramatic death—of Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory