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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arecibo Telescope | 4/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Telescope | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:15:38.928164+00:00 | kb-cron |
Several hurricanes and storms over the 2010s had raised the concerns of structural engineers over the stability of the observatory. On September 21, 2017, high winds associated with Hurricane Maria caused the 430 MHz line feed to break and fall onto the primary dish, damaging roughly 30 of the 38,000 aluminum panels. Most Arecibo observations did not use the line feed but instead relied on the feeds and receivers located in the dome. Overall, the damage inflicted by Maria was minimal, but it further clouded the observatory's future. Restoring all the previous capabilities required more than the observatory's already-threatened operating budget, and users feared that the decision would be made to decommission it instead. A consortium consisting of the University of Central Florida (UCF), Yang Enterprises and UMET came forward to supply funding in February 2018 to allow the NSF to reduce its contribution towards Arecibo's operating costs from $8 million to $2 million from the fiscal year 2022–2023, thus securing the observatory's future. With this, the UCF consortium were named the new operators of the observatory in 2018. On August 10, 2020, an auxiliary platform support cable separated from Tower 4, causing damage to the telescope, including a 30 meters (100 ft) gash in the reflector dish. Damage included six to eight panels in the Gregorian dome, and to the platform used to access the dome. No one was reported to have been hurt by the partial collapse. The facility was closed as damage assessments were made. The facility had recently reopened following the passing of Tropical Storm Isaias. It was unclear if the cable failure was caused by Isaias. Former Arecibo Observatory director Robert Kerr stated that prior to the 1997 installation of the Gregorian dome, the main support cables and support towers had been engineered with a safety factor of two, as to be able to sustain twice the weight of the platform. When the dome was added in 1997, the auxiliary cables were intended to retain the safety factor of two once all design factors were considered, but Kerr believed that that was never the case, as evenly distributing the loads following that install would be difficult to do. Kerr also stated that there had been periods of neglect at the Observatory, during which the fans that were used to blow dry air along the wire bundles were not operating. The earlier storms would have brought seawater to the cables, which could accelerate the rate of corrosion as well, according to Kerr. Engineering firms hired by UCF inspected the socket area where the cable had failed, and found a similar problem that had been observed in the 1980s during a routine cable replacement, in which the use of molten zinc to affix the cable to the socket mount at the tower was not complete, allowing moisture to get into the wire bundle and cause corrosion, and leading to the cable slipping from its socket. The firms had developed models of the telescope that showed that the safety factor for Tower 4 had dropped to 1.67, believing that the structure was still safe while repairs could be effected, even if another cable collapsed. Plans were made to replace all six auxiliary cables since their socket welds were all considered suspect, at a cost of US$10.5 million. Before repairs could be started, on November 7, 2020, one of the two main support cables from Tower 4 snapped, shattering part of the dish itself as it fell. The UCF engineering staff, which had been monitoring the cables with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the engineering firms they had hired previously evaluated the remaining cables from Tower 4. One engineering firm proposed stabilization efforts, while another suggested that they try to sever parts of the instrument platform such as the Gregorian dome to reduce the load. The third firm made the determination that there was no way to safely repair the damage at that point, as the remaining cables could be suspect, and furthermore that a controlled decommissioning of the telescope was the only effective means to avoid catastrophic failure which would threaten the other buildings on campus. The NSF took this advice and made the announcement on November 19, 2020, that they would decommission Arecibo over the following few weeks after determining the safest route to do so, with a safety exclusion zone immediately put in place. NSF's Sean Jones stated, "This decision is not an easy one for NSF to make, but safety of people is our number one priority." The lidar facility was to remain operational. While waiting for NSF to make the decommissioning plans, steps had been taken to try to reduce the load that each of the towers was carrying, including reducing the strain on the backstay support cables for the individual towers. Other plans, such as having helicopters hoisting part of the load while hovering above the telescope, were proposed but deemed too risky. Engineers from UCF had been monitoring the telescope and observed that wires in the backstay cables for the support towers had been breaking at a rate of one or two a day, and estimated that the telescope would soon collapse. In the weekend prior to December 1, 2020, wire strands in the receiver's supporting cables had also been snapping apart at a rapid rate, according to Ángel Vázquez, the director of operations. This culminated in the collapse of the receiver platform at around 6:55 a.m. AST (10:55 UTC) on December 1, 2020, as the second main cable from Tower 4 failed, with the other two remaining support cables failing moments later. The collapse of the receiver structure and cables onto the dish caused extensive additional damage. As the receiver fell, it also sheared the tips of the towers which the support cables ran through. Once the main cables from Tower 4 released, the backstay cables, which normally balanced the horizontal component of force from the main cables, pulled the tower outwards and broke off the top. The other two towers, once the force of supporting the platform was released, also had their tips sheared off due to the backstay cable tension. The top of Tower 12 caused some structural damage to other buildings on the observatory as it fell. No injuries from the collapse were reported.