ARECIBO Observatory:
1963-2020
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a 305 m (1,000 ft) spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. Following two breaks in cables supporting the receiver platform in mid-2020, the NSF decommissioned the telescope. A partial collapse of the telescope occurred on December 1, 2020, before controlled demolition could be conducted. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site.
At the Esperanza neighborhood in my hometown Arecibo Puerto Rico.
One of the reasons why this radar dish was the biggest in the world is because it was capable of detecting in 2 minutes any flying object up in space. While the one in London takes 2 days to detect anything.
The main mission for this radar at the Caribbean Island is to detect anything at space and report it to Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Movies such as Contact 1997 American Film.
Species, Golden Eye a James Bond movie, The year we made contact 2010, Little Green Men, the X-Files, Sneakernet, and partially Cover Affairs were filmed at the Arecibo Observatory.
And I as an Arecibian native I'm so proud and honor.
I thank American exceptionalism for creating and building this Radar in my hometown. It put Arecibo my hometown, right on the world map.
Gone but not forgotten!
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