Zinc creep in the cable spelter sockets brought down the 57 year old Arecibo telescope in 2020, a failure sequence that began with Hurricane Maria three years earlier and the first documented case of long term zinc creep in over a century of use.

Zinc creep in the cable spelter sockets brought down the 57 year old Arecibo telescope in 2020, a failure sequence that began with Hurricane Maria three years earlier and the first documented case of long term zinc creep in over a century of use.

A 2024 National Academies report blames the 2020 Arecibo telescope collapse on zinc creep in cable spelter sockets, a failure never documented before.