Given the misfortune caused by the sad (but shocking) collapse of the Arecibo Observatory telescope earlier this month in Puerto Rico, it appears that a plan is emerging to rebuild one of the world’s most recognizable instruments for deep space exploration.
Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Día news reports that Puerto Rican Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced has signed an action order that puts $ 8 million aside toward the reconstruction of the large single-dish radio telescope. The order also provides for the removal of debris from the fall of Dec. 1, and designates the telescope site as a “historic zone,” according to the report.
Caught in the film of an impressive drone, the observatory’s 900-ton platform, suspended 150 meters above the massive 305-meter basin, collapsed on Dec. 1 when several support cables collapsed, causing the high to collapse. -floor to the surface of the dish below. The observatory had been closed since August due to a cable lump at first. These misdemeanors earlier began an investigation and, subsequently, plans for controlled demolition; no single operator has ever had the opportunity to achieve it.
Owned by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the Arecibo Observatory entered service in 1963, and for nearly 60 years collected radio data used to make various observations that led to its -in the world’s first evidence of the existence of exoplanets. The telescope also became part of NASA’s study for near-Earth objects.
In her order, Vázquez Garced said the $ 8 million would be used to get rid of debris for the remains of the collapsed telescope, as well as replace it with a new radio telescope design. That leaves funding to build a real rebuild – a proposal far more costing than $ 8 million – a matter of future budget priorities from the NSF, which will receive the research allotments from Congress.
For the coming year, Congressional funding for the NSF currently depends on what happened to the $ 1.4 trillion spending bill that President Donald Trump recently signed – with several novel conditions – before returning to Congress for resubmission. Science states that the NSF ‘s funding allocation contained in the bill comes with a request that the organization set out its plans for the site. “In particular, lawyers want to know how NSF will decide whether to build a new observatory, and the cost of such a facility,” the report states. fa-near.