What Is Happening At The Alien-Hunting SETI Telescope?

The antenna bowl is statically built into the mountain range, its depth is 51 meters, the area is 73,000 m2. Above the Arecibo “saucer”, an eight-hundred-ton movable radiator is suspended on cables, collecting or emitting radio waves. And now that we mentioned the cables, here is where the disasters struck throughout this year. 

Unexpected Damage at the Arecibo SETI Telescope – August 2020

In early August this year, it was announced that the Alien-Hunting SETI Telescope will not work for at least three months due to damage caused by unknown reasons. Here is what we know.

It was announced that the Arecibo Observatory’s radio telescope antenna was damaged by a snapped cable supporting a metal platform above the telescope bowl. The cable punched a hole in the main antenna and damaged the elements of the feed hanging above it. While this was disastrous enough to stop the facility from working for at least three months, this past week has been even more devastating.

November 2020 – New Damage Reports

A second main cable of the SETI telescope has burst on November 6. The destruction of the cable led to new damage to its antenna and this is the second cable to break in three months. This was reported just a few days ago.

It is assumed that this was due to an increase in the load on the cables; earlier, breaks of individual fibers in the cable were already noticed, but the engineers did not have time to carry out emergency repairs. In the near future, experts are to install steel reinforcement to reduce the load on the remaining ropes, as well as expedite the delivery of two new ropes.