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Ed RIP Arecibo

Looks now like scenes from Fallout or some other post-apocalyptic game or movie could be shot there, without any set dressing.
 
I wonder if the main dish is salvageable. Could it be repaired and maintained for the decade or so it would take to get the funding and planning together for new towers, sensors, and upgraded ground systems?

Or is it just too far past its useful life, and better to toast its memory and move forward with something else?
 
Blue Mountain said:
I wonder if the main dish is salvageable. Could it be repaired and maintained for the decade or so it would take to get the funding and planning together for new towers, sensors, and upgraded ground systems?

Or is it just too far past its useful life, and better to toast its memory and move forward with something else?
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Sites like that cant be plentiful. Toast tonight, start clearing the junk tomorrow. All-new construction and all-new tech. Jobs for people, jobs for the future.

Good science for whoknowshowlong.
 
Blue Mountain said:
I wonder if the main dish is salvageable. Could it be repaired and maintained for the decade or so it would take to get the funding and planning together for new towers, sensors, and upgraded ground systems?

Or is it just too far past its useful life, and better to toast its memory and move forward with something else?
Click to expand...
The main dish is scrap metal. I very much doubt that any of it can be re-used.
 
I gather that with newer tech they can link multiple smaller radio telescopes for the same effect. Plus Aceribo could not be aimed, at least not much.

It was cool looking, but newer tech may preclude the need to replace it.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Who is saying that it is so important to preserve this particular telescope?

I think it may be a little too late to preserve it..
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Blue Mountain seems to be saying it.

I guess others are saying it's important to replace it.

Either way, why? What's so special about this particular radio telescope, as a telescope?
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Who is saying that it is so important to preserve this particular telescope?
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Well, I am ... sort of. The question here is now that the instrument is offline for good, is there science that won't be done? More than likely.

Is there science that can't be done? A whole other question entirely. The instrument was nearly 60 years old, and it's quite possible that today it's not the only device that can do the science it was doing; it's just that now the pool of available instruments has been reduced by one.

I think it may be a little too late to preserve it..
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Could well be. It will cost x hundred million just to fix the dish, and another 10x hundred million to rebuild the towers and replace the receiving and transmission equipment. If there is (some number) of instruments available in the world today that can do, and are doing, the work that Aricebo was doing until it shut down, then repairing the dish and replacing the electronics is just a waste of money. Better to put that funding toward something else. (Note the "if" there: I'm not a radio astronomer, so I don't have the answers. It's why I'm asking the question.)

Yes, it's an iconic instrument. As is (for me at least) an IBM System/360 mainframe. But no-one's running S/360s these days because there are much better systems in place.
 
Blue Mountain said:
Could well be. It will cost x hundred million just to fix the dish, and another 10x hundred million to rebuild the towers and replace the receiving and transmission equipment. If there is (some number) of instruments available in the world today that can do, and are doing, the work that Aricebo was doing until it shut down, then repairing the dish and replacing the electronics is just a waste of money. Better to put that funding toward something else. (Note the "if" there: I'm not a radio astronomer, so I don't have the answers. It's why I'm asking the question.)
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Given the age of the system, it seems unlikely that rebuilding it would be efficient compared to building a new instrument from scratch. It’s one thing to keep operating and maintaining a system you already built, but the telescope is totaled. I don’t see any prospect for rebuilding it. Even if they build a new one on the same site, it will be done from scratch.
 
Remember, the telescope is more than just the dish. The dish was destroyed when the instrument platform which had been suspended above the dish fell due to the damaged cables - this is probably what they were referring to when they said that the cables were unsafe to repair.

It's not only the dish that is totalled - that instrument platform is as well.
 
theprestige said:
Why is it so important to preserve this particular telescope?
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Among other things, Arecibo was the world's largest Radar Telescope, it was used to detect and investigate a lot of NEO's to see what their orbit was and to see if they were potential threats to Earth. It is sad to see it go, and we are now less able to determine these things as accurately.
 
sackett said:
Sites like that cant be plentiful. Toast tonight, start clearing the junk tomorrow. All-new construction and all-new tech. Jobs for people, jobs for the future.

Good science for whoknowshowlong.
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My understanding is that those responsible for maintaining it had other priorities. They have a limited budget and it lost out. Of course, IMHO they deserve a bigger budget.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Among other things, Arecibo was the world's largest Radar Telescope, it was used to detect and investigate a lot of NEO's to see what their orbit was and to see if they were potential threats to Earth. It is sad to see it go, and we are now less able to determine these things as accurately.
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I thought the new technology was the array of smaller radio telescopes. They are effectively much larger than a single large telescope could ever be.
 
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a_unique_person said:
I thought the new technology was the array of smaller radio telescopes. They are effectively much larger than a single large telescope could ever be.
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Yeah, but not all radio telescopes are radar telescopes. The radar can be used to ping asteroids and determine their distance and velocity with greater precision. This allows us to determine their orbits with greater accuracy, so that we can determine whether they might be headed our way in the near future. Scott Manley did a video about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEe4Wlc5Vp0
 
PhantomWolf said:
Among other things, Arecibo was the world's largest Radar Telescope, it was used to detect and investigate a lot of NEO's to see what their orbit was and to see if they were potential threats to Earth. It is sad to see it go, and we are now less able to determine these things as accurately.
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China built a larger single-aperture radio telescope in 2016, actually.

Presumably there are many other radio telescopes around the world that can detect and track NEOs.
 
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