L'Osservatorio Arecibo di Porto Rico è uno dei più importanti centri nazionali per la radioastronomia, il radar planetario e la scienza ionosferica. Foto dell'Università della Florida Centrale.
10368 x 6912 px | 87,8 x 58,5 cm | 34,6 x 23 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
agosto 2020
Ubicazione:
Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Altre informazioni:
Questa foto è un'immagine di pubblico dominio, il che significa che il copyright è scaduto o che il titolare del copyright ha rinunciato a tale diritto. Alamy addebita un costo per l'accesso alla copia ad alta risoluzione dell'immagine.
Questa immagine potrebbe avere delle imperfezioni perché è storica o di reportage.
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), is an observatory in 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 cable breaks supporting the receiver platform in the prior months, the NSF stated on November 19, 2020 that it was decommissioning the telescope due to safety concerns. On December 1, 2020 the main telescope collapsed before controlled demolition could be conducted. The observatory also includes a radio telescope, a LIDAR facility, and a visitor's center, all which are expected to remain operational after the damage from the main telescope collapse is assessed. The observatory's main feature was its large radio telescope, whose main collecting dish was an inverted spherical dome 1, 000 feet (305 m) in diameter with an 869-foot (265 m) radius of curvature, [5] constructed inside a karst sinkhole.[6] The dish's surface was made of 38, 778 perforated aluminum panels, each about 3 by 7 feet (1 by 2 m), supported by a mesh of steel cables.[5] The ground beneath supported shade-tolerant vegetation.[7] Since its completion in November 1963, the Telescope had been used for radar astronomy and radio astronomy, and had been part of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) program. It was also used by NASA for Near-Earth object detection. Since around 2006, NSF funding support for the telescope had waned as the Foundation directed funds to newer instruments, though academics petitioned to the NSF and Congress to continue support.
