The Giant Arecibo Telescope Is Finally Completely Destroyed

Arecibo Telescope Faulty (doc. University of Central Florida)

JAKARTA - The giant telescope belonging to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was finally completely damaged and completely destroyed. More than 900 tonnes of telescope slabs and supporting cables broke after being closed on November 22.

Launching from the National Geographic website, Wednesday, December 2, the damage to the telescope is believed to have occurred after a storm and earthquake hit the area. Earlier, two of the supporting cables from the main structure of the Arecibo telescope broke.

The photos of the damage to the Arecibo telescope were shared by Deborah Martorell, via her personal Twitter account. You can see the Arecibo reflector plate falling and one of the main supporting pillars collapsing.

Muy tristes las fotos desde el Observatorio de Arecibo. pic.twitter.com/7gByZLdPFF

- Deborah Martorell (@DeborahTiempo) December 1, 2020

This has been confirmed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which houses the Arecibo Observatory. The party ensured that there were no victims in the incident.

"We can confirm the telescope fell and we have reports of no injuries. We will release additional details once confirmed," said NSF Laboratory Manager Robert Margutta.

Previously, the operations of the Arecibo Observatory were permanently closed. Following the severing of several of the support cables and reflector plates from the telescope were damaged in a series of earthquakes and storms that hit Puerto Rico.

Arecibo has been used for scientific research and tracking asteroids that are close to Earth. This telescope is also used to send signals beyond the Milky Way, as part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program to detect other life outside Earth or aliens.