The head of Scientific Operations at the Arecibo Observatory, Christiano Brum, said that the new structure that will be erected at the site will be “state-of-the-art” and “more powerful and sensitive” than the one that collapsed. last December.
“Here at the Arecibo Observatory, we continue to work hard to continue Arecibo’s legacy, with a new state-of-the-art observatory that would be even more powerful and sensitive,” he stated.
The 305-meter telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020, after a series of broken cables suspended the 900-tonne platform on the radio telescope receiver plate.
Built in 1963, the telescope was the world’s largest single-plate radio telescope until the FAST telescope began operating in China in 2016.
At the time of its collapse, the Arecibo telescope was still known as the world’s most sensitive and powerful radar telescope and was making innovative scientific discoveries about our atmosphere, the cosmos and tracking a record number of nearby asteroids. on earth.