Is the loss of Arecibo a big blow to the scientific community? I was of the impression that Arecibo was long past it's heyday and in general that large arrays of smaller receivers were now considered superior.
Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
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Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#12Why were they filming? As in why was the drone in place and looking at a close-up of the cable?
This is quite the coincidence. The drone operator seemed prepared for exactly what was coming.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#13Wow. As tragic as the collapse is, at least it has been filmed (i thought it had not when I saw the announcement tweet with its far-away photo). If nothing else it's about as spectacular as I had expected.
Had I been in the area I'd have been tempted to set up my camera somewhere close (remember that the risk of collapse was known to be high).
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#14Why were they filming? As in why was the drone in place and looking at a close-up of the cable?
The risk of collapse was known to be very high. Two cables had snapped beforehand and they already didn't have people come near it for safety reasons (hence inspection via drone).
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#15Is the loss of Arecibo a big blow to the scientific community? I was of the impression that Arecibo was long past it's heyday and in general that large arrays of smaller receivers were now considered superior.
I work at UW astronomy. It’s mostly symbolic. The main capability loss is that Arecibo was able to transmit, which is unique at its size. As an example, that was useful to rescue the ISEE-3 explorer when it passed through a comet trail in the 1980s. Only Arecibo was powerful enough to blast a radio message through the comet trail. (PDF reference: https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-84/84T.PDF)
Arecibo was certainly still used actively, but it’s not the only observatory in its class - its not like the LHC or Hubble blowing up or something.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#16Is the loss of Arecibo a big blow to the scientific community? I was of the impression that Arecibo was long past it's heyday and in general that large arrays of smaller receivers were now considered superior.
I work at UW astronomy. It’s mostly symbolic. The main capability loss is that Arecibo was able to transmit, which is unique at its size. As an example, that was useful to rescue the ISEE-3 explorer when it passed through a comet trail in the 1980s. Only Arecibo was powerful enough to blast a radio message through the comet trail. (PDF reference: https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-84/84T.PDF ) Arecibo was…
Asking as a non-astronomer: my understanding is that other telescopes in this class are synthetic/multiple aperture, and not single-aperture like Arecibo (with a small number of exceptions, like FAST).
Is there any science you can do on extremely-large single-aperture telescopes that you can't do on comparable synthetic/multiple aperture telescopes?
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#17Is there any chance at all that this gets rebuilt? Is anybody even putting the costs requirements together to do it, or is this just a total loss?
This is so unbelievably sad to see. It reminds me of seeing Notre Dame burning last year.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#18I wonder whats going on with the cable when it fails.
It seems to be snapping/frays at first, but then it seems like it was pulled out of its base
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#19What a time to be alive, definitely watch past the initial grainy CCTV footage for the HD drone closeup of the cable supports snapping.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#20Why were they filming? As in why was the drone in place and looking at a close-up of the cable?
Arecibo scientists reported creaking and cable fraying from days before. These videos took their sweet time to surface, given that the observatory was likely monitored close since it was deemed too dangerous to salvage.
The first day we had a picture of the dish and some dust, the next day we had a video that was blinded by the sun, basically just audio. I didn't expect drones, but I'm grateful for that closure.