The collapse of the Arecibo Telescope.

[MCRoads]

As some of you may know, the Arecibo Telescope has collapsed, and destroyed one of the most important facilities for radio astronomy. There is now 2 videos of the collapse, 1 from a drone near the cable failure. This video is an analysis of the failure, and a very good one at that. The reason I am posting it here is that it seems like it would be very similar to how a cable on a suspension bridge or cable stayed bridge could fall. Hope you guys find this interesting.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Believe this is where the final climactic sequence of GoldenEye was filmed. Eerily in the film the fictional observatory was blown up and fell on the movie's villain as he lay injured from a fall off of it.

[Max Rockatansky]

Believe this is where the final climactic sequence of GoldenEye was filmed. Eerily in the film the fictional observatory was blown up and fell on the movie's villain as he lay injured from a fall off of it.

Yes, it is the GoldenEye telescope from the end of the movie (also the end of the N64 game).  The facility was intended to trigger the Goldeneye Satellite in the movie which would have been an EMP device intended to black out London.

[Bruce]

It's an amazing testament to our national negligence of both hard science and Puerto Rico.

[Buck87]

When it comes to movies that featured Arecibo, I prefer this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfiOT14MyaQ

[Max Rockatansky]

When it comes to movies that featured Arecibo, I prefer this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfiOT14MyaQ

I was so disappointed when the alien at the end looked her Dad because it would have been "easier for her to handle."  

[kkt]

As some of you may know, the Arecibo Telescope has collapsed, and destroyed one of the most important facilities for radio astronomy. There is now 2 videos of the collapse, 1 from a drone near the cable failure. This video is an analysis of the failure, and a very good one at that. The reason I am posting it here is that it seems like it would be very similar to how a cable on a suspension bridge or cable stayed bridge could fall. Hope you guys find this interesting.

It's very sad.  It's a case of maintenance deferred and deferred.  But it's not as important to radio astronomy as it was.  Newer segmented radio telescopes have more resolution, such as the Square Kilometre Array.    What Arecibo had, and the array telescopes don't, is the ability to do radar.  Many near-earth asteroids had their size and shape determined by radar from Arecibo.

But that's the nature of high tech observatories.  They only stay the latest and greatest thing for a 20-30 years and then they aren't in as much demand, and it becomes hard to fund maintenance and repairs.

[kalvado]

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But that's the nature of high tech observatories.  They only stay the latest and greatest thing for a 20-30 years and then they aren't in as much demand, and it becomes hard to fund maintenance and repairs.

More like any high tech research equipment. Steel sitting in tropics for what, 60 years, got rusty? Oh, that never happened before!