Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 315 posts

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#301

Post by knaq »

jessaustin wrote: post #271
admiralspoo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defense budget is tiny compared to the US's welfare state programs.

Welfare programs promote the welfare of USA residents, which is a valid use of public funds. The defense budget is almost entirely wasted. We haven't won a war in 75 years. Our various bumbling military misadventures have killed thousands of Americans and millions of other humans. If we spent a tenth of what we spend, both we and humanity in general would be safer, happier, and more prosperous. The Pentagon is never…

Rule of law means we must check the US Constitution for what is "a valid use of public funds". OK...

Well, it looks like war gets the public funds.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#302

Post by aylmao »

XorNot wrote: post #264
aylmao wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three that sound pretty exciting to me are ITER [1], the Extremely Large Telescope [2] and the James Webb Space Telescope. I'm sure there is also more I haven't heard of yet! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope

James Webb is the one I worry about the most. ITER has a taken a long time, but they're making steady forward progress with it. Whereas I live in fear that James Webb will suffer a failure during launch or deployment that just turns it into a very expensive explosion.

I agree. Or even if nothing explodes, I'm worried that during the unfolding something will break or get stuck and, and unlike Hubble it won't be "easily" repairable (if at all). Hopefully this doesn't happen, because it is a once-in-many-decades project.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#303

Post by aylmao »

peterwoerner wrote: post #269
aylmao wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three that sound pretty exciting to me are ITER [1], the Extremely Large Telescope [2] and the James Webb Space Telescope. I'm sure there is also more I haven't heard of yet! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope

Roman Space Telescope, LISA. [1] https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [2] https://lisa.nasa.gov/ , https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/LISA

I didn't know about these two. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#304

Post by selimthegrim »

selimthegrim wrote: post #274
kgin wrote: post #34

When I was 5 years old, I saw a pbs documentary about the Arecibo telescope. During a shot of a huge expanse of the telescope's metal, the narrator said something to the effect of "as one gets closer to the equator the sun's rays are stronger and the metal becomes too hot to touch". This, combined with the fact that I had a globe with a raised ridge around the equator, caused me to assume (for many years) that the eq…

I just remember its appearance in “The Arrival” as “el radio”

My bad, I must have remembered this line from Contact because The Arrival is set in Owens Valley

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#305

Post by asgekar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #284
asgekar wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, A radio astronomer here, and writing opinion for all that's worth. I visited Arecibo once and stayed for a short project for 3 months. It was awesome, and they have a fabulous small astronomy team doing some really interesting science. My mentor and long-term collaborator has used this telescope since the 70s, and she will be devastated. This dish has produced so many unexpected discoveries, solid science of high…

I would add that the one thing arecebo had over fast was a transmit function, a suspended cabin heavy enough to support a radar emitter. If you want to bounce radar off planets, fast wont work.

Correct! Bird lovers would hate to see those birds die, but the LiDar was the facility which allowed high-res atmospheric studies. FAST, or most other telescopes, don't have this capacity, especially with any comparable size (which allows us to amplify the signal when focused).

Truly sad.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#306

Post by paul_f »

dgr582systems wrote: post #194
Retric wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the structure. Giant steel objects are much harder to keep intact, to the point where non iconic objects are easier to replace once than maintain for 100+ years.

Like the (iconic) Sydney Harbour Bridge which requires continuous repainting. It’s very expensive to maintain. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/ag-blog/2013/1...

Another example of continuous painting is the Golden Gate bridge https://www.goldengate.org/bridge/bridge-maintenance/paintin...

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#307

Post by efreak »

mncharity wrote: post #294
Nition wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed there seems to be a constant war over the main image on the Wikipedia page about the Sun. In 2013 there's no image[1]. In 2014 the Sun is yellow-orange[2]. In 2015 it's white[3]. In 2016 it's briefly orange again[4] before going back to white. At one point it's sort of eye-of-sauron[5]. Finally today there are two images, one white and one yellow-orange. Further down the page it's blue.[6] [1] https://en…

Ha, interesting. I wonder if someone's done a site where one can easily scroll back and forth in time, watching WP articles change. Hmm, one might make a simple MVP radial gradient from a slice of that Sun_white[1] image. > constant war Well, there's varied esthetics. And misconception avoidance awareness (spotty) and prioritization (varied - some astronomy outreach knowingly does aphysical art thinking it more engag…

Forget scrolling, I'd like to see it change as an animation.

What I'd really like from Wikipedia is a git-blame (separated by periods in addition to line breaks) for identifying the time of unnoticed vandalism so I can see what else was modified at the same time and should thus be ignored.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#308

Post by galgalesh »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #234
RedOrGreen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm too sad today to engage with this, but you're simply wrong about Arecibo "having done all the useful things it could do ages ago, and not finding anything new". Here, for example, is Arecibo on the cover of Nature, in 2018: [1]. And you might want to look into NANOGrav [2]: you'll be hearing a lot more about it (I promise) in one or two years, depending on publication timelines. [1] https://twitter.com/nature/sta…

Despite its large instantaneous sensitivity, Arecibo is not really suited for transient work. In the FRB example Arecibo has a factor 22 advantage in collective area and yet trails Parkes by a factor of 14 in number of discovered FRBs: weak evidence of a unique capability. And it's too bad the NANOGrav risks getting its results delayed by the inability to extend observations on half its sources, but the loss of Areci…

There is a sea of difference between your initial statement of "having done all the useful things it could do ages ago, and not finding anything new" and your new statement of wanting conclusive proof that Arecibo has "a unique capability".

The "proof" shows Arecibo was still very useful and finding new things and this disaster will significantly delay research. (As a side note; delays in research can easily mean the death of that research as funding is often time-bound)

Somewhere in this there is a larger story of useful projects not receiving enough funding because they aren't sexy enough.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#309

Post by JetSpiegel »

bobthepanda wrote: post #196
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an ideal location though? From an astrophysics perspective I bet it's ideal, but from a structural perspective it's still a large steel structure in the tropics that's also simultaneously in both a hurricane and earthquake zone, which to me seems closer to a worst case scenario than a perfect spot to build. Ignoring geopolitical matters I wonder if an installation on the same latitude in the mexican mountains w…

I mean the geopolitical status of Puerto Rico is not necessarily better, given that even today PR has terrible power infrastructure and no clear plan to fix it.

Maybe if it was the 51st state instead of a colony, the political will would magically appear?

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#310

Post by JetSpiegel »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #251
admiralspoo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defense budget is tiny compared to the US's welfare state programs.

The defense budget IS a welfare program.

Corporate welfare. But as Romney says, "corporations are people, my friend".
Post reply on HN