A large swath of the dish was destroyed, as were the upper portions of the concrete towers that had held the receiver aloft.Ī recent analysis by the engineering consulting firm Thornton Tomasetti - commissioned by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns and funds the Arecibo Observatory - blamed the collapse on a number of factors that largely amount to “mechanical stress,” exacerbated by natural disasters like Hurricane Maria in 2017 and earthquakes in early 2020. That morning, a failure of support cables - following two lesser cable breaks in the months prior - caused the Arecibo Telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform to come crashing down upon its iconic 1,000-foot-diameter dish. (Though a nearby car got pretty banged up by the falling debris, Brum said.)
He hails from Brazil and has worked at the observatory for more than a decade.Īs rocks fell on the roof of the shed where Brum was working, he quickly ducked into the larger research building nearby and checked that all on-site staffers were safe. Brum is an atmospheric scientist and the deputy director of science operations at the Arecibo Observatory. We were standing in the humid, hilly forest of northwestern Puerto Rico, a couple hundred yards from the rim of the now-defunct Arecibo Telescope. I heard ‘brrr,’ and then little rocks hitting my roof here.” And then rocks from that tower,” Brum said, pointing up a nearby hill, “started to come this way like a shower. ‘The little telescope that could’ Nicole J Lou Ĭhristiano Brum was there when it collapsed.
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