Scientists described the collapse of the giant radio telescope in Puerto Rico this week as a "huge loss" after more than half a century of scientific discoveries in which it played a key role.
The US National Science Foundation had already said it would close the radio telescope after an auxiliary cable snapped in August, causing a 30-metre gash on the 305m-wide dish and damaging the receiver platform that hung above it, followed by a a main cable breaking in early November.
On Tuesday, the telescope's 900-tonne receiver platform and the Gregorian dome — a structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary reflectors — fell onto the northern portion of the vast reflector dish more than 100 metres below.
“It sounded like a rumble. I knew exactly what it was,” said Jonathan Friedman, who worked for 26 years as a senior research associate at the observatory and still lives near it.
“I was screaming. Personally, I was out of control," Mr Friedman told the Associated Press. "I don't have words to express it. It's a very deep, terrible feeling.”
Mr Friedman ran up a small hill near his home and confirmed his suspicions: a cloud of dust hung in the air where the structure once stood, demolishing hopes held by some scientists that the telescope could somehow be repaired.
The collapse was not a surprise because many of the wires in the thick cables holding the structure snapped over the weekend, Angel Vazquez, the telescope’s director of operations, said.
“It was a snowball effect,” he said. “There was no way to stop it. It was too much for the old girl to take.”
He said that it was extremely difficult to say whether anything could have been done to prevent the damage that occurred after the first cable snapped in August.
“The maintenance was kept up as best as we could,” he said. The National Science Foundation "did the best that they could with what they have”.
However, observatory director Francisco Cordova, said that while the NSF decided it was too risky to repair the damaged cables before Tuesday's collapse, he believes there had been options, such as relieving tension in certain cables or using helicopters to help redistribute weight.
Meanwhile, installing a new telescope would cost up to $350 million, money the NSF does not have, Mr Vazquez said, adding it would have to come from U.S. Congress.
“It's a huge loss,” said Carmen Pantoja, an astronomer and professor at the University of Puerto Rico who used the telescope for her doctorate. “It was a chapter of my life.”
Scientists worldwide had been petitioning US officials and others to reverse the NSF's decision to close the observatory. The NSF said at the time that it intended to eventually reopen the visitor centre and restore operations at the observatory’s remaining assets, including its two Lidar facilities used for upper atmospheric and ionospheric research, including analysing cloud cover and precipitation data. The Lidar facilities are still operational, along with a 12-metre telescope and a photometer used to study photons in the atmosphere, Mr Vazquez said.
“We are saddened by this situation but thankful that no one was hurt,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement. “When engineers advised NSF that the structure was unstable and presented a danger to work teams and Arecibo staff, we took their warnings seriously.”
The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defence Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defences. It had endured hurricanes, tropical humidity and a recent string of earthquakes in its 57 years of operation.
The telescope has been used to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable. It also served as a training ground for graduate students and drew about 90,000 visitors a year.
“I am one of those students who visited it when young and got inspired,” said Abel Mendez, a physics and astrobiology professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo who has used the telescope for research. “The world without the observatory loses, but Puerto Rico loses even more.”
He last used the telescope on August 6, just days before a socket holding the auxiliary cable that snapped failed in what experts believe could be a manufacturing error. The NSF, which owns the observatory that is managed by the University of Central Florida, said crews who evaluated the structure after the first incident determined that the remaining cables could handle the additional weight.
But on November 6, another cable broke.
Scientists had used the telescope to study pulsars to detect gravitational waves as well as search for neutral hydrogen, which can reveal how certain cosmic structures are formed. About 250 scientists worldwide had been using the observatory when it closed in August, including Mr Mendez, who was studying stars to detect habitable planets.
“I'm trying to recover,” he said. “I am still very much affected.”
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Ultra processed foods
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars;
- energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes,
- many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts.
LA LIGA FIXTURES
Friday
Granada v Real Betis (9.30pm)
Valencia v Levante (midnight)
Saturday
Espanyol v Alaves (4pm)
Celta Vigo v Villarreal (7pm)
Leganes v Real Valladolid (9.30pm)
Mallorca v Barcelona (midnight)
Sunday
Atletic Bilbao v Atletico Madrid (4pm)
Real Madrid v Eibar (9.30pm)
Real Sociedad v Osasuna (midnight)
MATCH INFO
Everton 0
Manchester City 2 (Laporte 45 2', Jesus 90 7')
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Reputation
Taylor Swift
(Big Machine Records)
Secret Nation: The Hidden Armenians of Turkey
Avedis Hadjian, (IB Tauris)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EQureos%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2021%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E33%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESoftware%20and%20technology%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%243%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
What to watch out for:
Algae, waste coffee grounds and orange peels will be used in the pavilion's walls and gangways
The hulls of three ships will be used for the roof
The hulls will painted to make the largest Italian tricolour in the country’s history
Several pillars more than 20 metres high will support the structure
Roughly 15 tonnes of steel will be used
Getting there
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly to Johannesburg or Cape Town daily. Flights cost from about Dh3,325, with a flying time of 8hours and 15 minutes. From there, fly South African Airlines or Air Namibia to Namibia’s Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport, for about Dh850. Flying time is 2 hours.
The stay
Wilderness Little Kulala offers stays from £460 (Dh2,135) per person, per night. It is one of seven Wilderness Safari lodges in Namibia; www.wilderness-safaris.com.
Skeleton Coast Safaris’ four-day adventure involves joining a very small group in a private plane, flying to some of the remotest areas in the world, with each night spent at a different camp. It costs from US$8,335.30 (Dh30,611); www.skeletoncoastsafaris.com
The biog
Favourite book: Men are from Mars Women are from Venus
Favourite travel destination: Ooty, a hill station in South India
Hobbies: Cooking. Biryani, pepper crab are her signature dishes
Favourite place in UAE: Marjan Island
Expert advice
“Join in with a group like Cycle Safe Dubai or TrainYAS, where you’ll meet like-minded people and always have support on hand.”
Stewart Howison, co-founder of Cycle Safe Dubai and owner of Revolution Cycles
“When you sweat a lot, you lose a lot of salt and other electrolytes from your body. If your electrolytes drop enough, you will be at risk of cramping. To prevent salt deficiency, simply add an electrolyte mix to your water.”
Cornelia Gloor, head of RAK Hospital’s Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy Centre
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can ride as fast or as far during the summer as you do in cooler weather. The heat will make you expend more energy to maintain a speed that might normally be comfortable, so pace yourself when riding during the hotter parts of the day.”
Chandrashekar Nandi, physiotherapist at Burjeel Hospital in Dubai
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Results:
5pm: Abu Dhabi Fillies Classic (PA) Prestige Dh 110,000 1.400m | Winner: AF Mouthirah, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
5.30pm: Abu Dhabi Colts Classic (PA) Prestige Dh 110,000 1,400m | Winner: AF Saab, Antonio Fresu, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 80,000 1,600m | Winner: Majd Al Gharbia, Saif Al Balushi, Ridha ben Attia
6.30pm: Abu Dhabi Championship (PA) Listed Dh 180,000 1,600m | Winner: RB Money To Burn, Pat Cosgrave, Eric Lemartinel
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup (PA) Handicap Dh 70,000 2,200m | Winner: AF Kafu, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
7.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 100,000 2,400m | Winner: Brass Ring, Fabrice Veron, Ismail Mohammed
World Cricket League Division 2
In Windhoek, Namibia - Top two teams qualify for the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, which starts on March 4.
UAE fixtures
Thursday February 8, v Kenya; Friday February 9, v Canada; Sunday February 11, v Nepal; Monday February 12, v Oman; Wednesday February 14, v Namibia; Thursday February 15, final
