Happy Birthday, Arecibo! At 55, Iconic Radio Telescope Survives Hurricane, Funding Challenges

Happy Birthday, Arecibo! At 55, Iconic Radio Telescope Survives Hurricane, Funding Challenges

Happy Birthday, Arecibo! At 55, Iconic Radio Telescope Survives Hurricane, Funding Challenges





Happy Birthday, Arecibo! At 55, Iconic Radio Telescope Survives Hurricane, Funding Challenges


		From Puerto Rico Arecibo Observatory, the second largest radio telescope in the world, celebrates the 55th anniversary of its inauguration today (November 1). 

		Since it began operating in 1963, the telescope has scanned the skies for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and potentially dangerous asteroids near Earth. He even made a cameo in the James Bond movie "GoldenEye". 

		The observatory suffered some damage when Hurricane Maria hit the site and may have lost its "new telescope smell" for decades. But the telescope is up and running and is still doing a lot of science, and some new updates will soon expand the capabilities of the telescope. However, the repair work is still far from being done.

The[[The Arecibo Observatory: Puerto Rico giant radio telescope in photos]

		Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a category 4 storm on September 20, 2017. The storm destroyed much of the island and inflicted damage on the 1,000-foot (305-meter) plate of the radio telescope. A large line feed antenna that hung above the plate broke completely. While scientific operations resumed shortly after the hurricane, it will take another four years to complete the repair work of $ 14.3 million, Francisco Córdova, the observatory's director, told Space.com in an email. 

		"We have made most of the immediate repairs necessary to maintain operations," Cordova said. "These include debris cleaning activities, repair of damaged / perforated primary reflector panels during the hurricane, inspection and cleaning of the edge wall surrounding the primary reflector," and repair of damage to other buildings at the observatory, he said. Meanwhile, the observatory is also strengthening to prepare for any additional catastrophic storm that may affect Puerto Rico in the future. 

		"That said, there is still much to be done, particularly for more complex scientific teams," he said. One of the major repairs still pending is the replacement of the large line power that was interrupted during the hurricane. 

		Although the 96-foot (29 m) antenna might have seemed one of the most important components of the radio telescope because of its size, but its loss has not affected the scientific capacity of the observatory too much. "By losing the line break, we lost our ability to perform radar observations of double atmospheric 430 MHz," said Córdova. However, there is another 430 MHz radar source inside the dome that is suspended over the plate, "so we have been able to maintain a similar capacity," he said. 

		Another priority will be to fix the alignment of the primary reflector of the telescope or the huge main dish that was damaged during Hurricane Mary when the line feed antenna fell on it. First, scientists are working to create a new type of technology to perform that task more efficiently. 

		"In the past, photogrammetry was used for this, but the process was very manual and labor-intensive, taking more than six months to collect the data," Cordova said. "We are exploring a laser technology that could provide a model of the dish in real time in less than 3 hours." Once the team has mapped the surface of the plate, the adjustment of the alignment should take less than six months.

		The aging of the Arecibo Observatory, which has received most of its funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States since the 1970s, has been in the block for more than a decade. In February, the NSF announced that it would cut its annual contributions to the observatory by more than 25 percent and that the University of Central Florida (UCF) would take over the management of the observatory. 

		Some researchers using the Arecibo Observatory expressed concern about funding uncertainties under way during an event at a city hall at the 50th annual meeting of the Planetary Sciences Division of the American Astronomical Society in Knoxville, Tennessee, on October 24. 

		"The National Science Foundation has been very generous with repairs," said Yan Fernandez, UCF's chief scientist at City Hall. But now, "the task of UCF is to find out how to replace that money" that NSF contributed annually. NASA is providing more and more funds for radar astronomy observations in Arecibo, which helps, but is not enough to make up for the deficit. NSF will gradually reduce its funding over the next five years, which will give the observatory time to find donors and additional external partners who can "buy at the observatory," Fernandez said.

		While the scientists were delighted To know that the NSF would not close the observatory on the costly consequences of Hurricane Maria, some researchers worry that the financial burden may fall on their respective research institutions. 

		Investigators may have to pay fees of more than $ 2 million for each use of the telescope. This huge price surprised some scientists in the town hall. However, others pointed out that the funding that NSF is removing from the Arecibo Observatory could be granted to scientists as research grants and that other donors might be interested in financing specific research projects. 

		Fernandez suggested that another way to help astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory finance their work would be to make the observatory part of UCF, which now only administers the facilities. If the university owned the observatory, it could get funding from the state of Florida, he said. 





						


Aerial view of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico after the cleaning of Hurricane Maria. The 1,000-foot (305-meter) plate was cleaned for the first time in history after the hurricane.

            						    Credit: NAIC 




		Old reach, new booty

		While the repairs are being made, the observatory will also receive some important improvements. In August, UCF announced that the Arecibo Observatory will soon receive A new supersensitive antenna called ALPACA. (Advanced cryogenic camera of bands in phase L of band L for Arecibo). Now, the observatory staff is working on a second proposal to present to the NSF for another round of repairs. That proposal will be presented at the beginning of 2019, said Córdova. 

		Some of the major projects that observatory staff are considering for the new repair proposal include "major improvements to the telescope's control and transmitter systems" and "infrastructure improvements for better maintenance of critical equipment," he said. 

		The observatory may also soon obtain a new support cable to replace one that was damaged during an earthquake in 2014. "While it does not represent an immediate risk to the structure, we would like to see that cable completely replaced," Cordova said.  

		With all these improvements and repairs, "our intention is to maximize the recovery capacity while increasing the scientific capacity" of the Arecibo Observatory, said Córdova. The NSF, which is paying most of the emergency money repairs granted by Congress, will review the observatory's new proposal and allocate funds to the various projects sometime in 2019. 



	Send an email to Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow it @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and in Facebook. Original article about Space.com.

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