A Tragic Loss: Arecibo Telescope Collapses

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The collapse of the 305-meter Arecibo radio telescope this week was a great loss to science and to the world.

The telescope was built the year after I was born. I first learned about it when I was a boy. 

The telescope made many great discoveries. One of its first was to prove that Mercury rotated one every 59 Earth days, when scientists at the time thought it rotated once every 88 days. It made the first maps of Venus, detected the first binary pulsar, and the first extrasolar planet.

It was used multiple times in the ongoing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. I remember reading that it could have detected a signal sent from a radio telescope of equal size and power to itself transmitting from clear across the galaxy. It sent the first powerful signal into deep space. I will never forget the scenes in the movie Contact that were filmed there. 

The Arecibo telescope was a wonder of American science and an inspiration to millions. I sincerely hope that is rebuilt even better than it was. If so it needs to be built to last a hundred years even with the increased hurricanes that are likely to be striking Puerto Rico in the next century.


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