Washington (AFP)
The Arecibo observation station, on the American island of Puerto Rico, will not close despite the collapse of its famous radio telescope this week, the site officials assured Thursday, without giving further details on its future.
The National Science Foundation of America (NSF) "will not close the Arecibo Observatory," Ralph Gaume, NSF director of astronomical sciences, said in a press conference call.
He said he was "deeply sad" at the loss of the telescope which had "a bright future with many and impressive scientific results to come".
The radio telescope, one of the largest in the world, collapsed Tuesday when two cables supporting its 900-ton instruments broke, causing "significant damage" to the 305-meter-diameter dish and around it.
In videos of the crash released Thursday, two of the cables pulled from a concrete tower to support the telescope are seen breaking.
Destabilized, the structure falls a few seconds later and pierces part of the parabola.
The whole was already weakened by the rupture of cables on one of the support towers on August 10 and November 6.
The telescope was then deemed too unstable and unrepairable, and the NSF made the decision to demolish the structure.
"The situation was dangerous", explained Mr. Gaume.
"After November 6, those cables could have broken anytime, we couldn't predict when it would happen but we knew it would happen."
He said the accident was not due to a lack of funding from the site operator, the University of Central Florida (UCF).
It "had all the funds necessary to proceed with stabilization and repair attempts," said Ralph Gaume.
While the Arecibo station will remain open, Mr. Gaume declined to comment on a possible replacement of the telescope.
"The NSF has a very well defined process for funding and building very large infrastructure including telescopes," he said.
"It is a process that lasts several years and involves funding for the Congress and studies on the needs of the scientific community."
The telescope was used by astronomers around the world and had made it possible to discover the first planets orbiting a star other than the Sun.
In service for 57 years, he had also been the setting for scenes from films, such as "Contact" and "GoldenEye".
© 2020 AFP