For 57 years, the Arecibo Observatory’s 1,000-foot dish sat sunk into a Puerto Rican valley listening to the sky, and in December 2020, after cables holding its 900-ton instrument platform snapped one by one, the entire structure gave way and crashed straight through the reflector below.

For 57 years, the Arecibo Observatory’s 1,000-foot dish sat sunk into a Puerto Rican valley listening to the sky, and in December 2020, after cables holding its 900-ton instrument platform snapped one by one, the entire structure gave way and crashed straight through the reflector below.

Ángel Vázquez, the observatory’s director of telescope operations, was standing outside the control room on the morning of December 1, 2020 when he heard a loud bang. He looked up in time to watch the rest happen. A 900-ton instrument platform, suspended 500 feet above the dish on a handful of steel cables, tore free […]