The iconic Arecibo Telescope goes quiet after major damage

That's a big dish! The Arecibo radio telescope in its salad days. (credit: NSF)

Early Monday morning, a cable suspended over the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico broke and left a 100-foot-long gash in the dish of the iconic radio telescope. The 3-inch-diameter cable also caused damage to the panels of the Gregorian dome that is suspended hundreds of feet above the dish and houses the telescope's receivers. It is unclear what caused the cable to break or when radio astronomers using the telescope will be able to resume their research.

This was an auxiliary cable used to support the weight of the platform, and we are in the process of assessing why it broke," says Zenaida Kotala, the assistant vice president for strategic initiatives at the University of Central Florida, which manages the observatory. We are working with engineers to determine a strategy for repairs. Our goal is to get the facility operational as soon as it is possible to do so safely."

Astronomers have used the Arecibo radio telescope to study the cosmos since 1963. For most of its life, the observatory was far and away the largest telescope of its kind in the world. (It was only recently surpassed by China's FAST radio telescope.) Its 1,000-foot radio dish is built into a natural depression in the surrounding hills and acts like a giant ear listening for faint radio signals from galaxies far, far away.

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