A falling steel rope has damaged the famous Arebico telescope in Puerto Rico. The operation of the Observatory was interrupted until Further notice, informed the University of Central Florida, which is for the Radio-telescope, responsible. A 7.5-centimetre-thick steel cable that was used to secure a metal platform above the 300-metre telescope dish was ripped in the night to Monday from still unknown reasons.
In the fall have the cable caused a roughly 30-metre-long crack in the reflector bowl. The dome, in the part of the receiver is housed had been damaged, below the platform strong. The University of Florida has no information on how long the repairs will take. The damage caused by hurricane Maria in the year 2017 at the Observatory will be repaired.
The radio telescope in Puerto Rico until 2016, with around 300 meters in diameter the world’s largest of its kind in four years, the Chinese 500 Meter Radio telescope holds in the southwestern province of Guizhou record.
The Arebico telescope began in 1963, the operation, and is still one of the most sensitive radio telescopes in the world. In 1974, the American astronomer and later Nobel prize winner Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor of the binary pulsar “PSR 1913+16, discovered with him”. The two mutually orbiting neutron stars provided the first evidence for the existence of gravitational waves. Radio telescopes radio waves from space. The signals are then processed by computers and converted into images.
The Observatory in Arecibo, which is managed by the University of Central Florida in cooperation with a local University network, as well as a private company, is also a popular tourist attraction. It was through the James Bond movie “Golden Eye” known to a wide audience.
