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In the course of our daily reporting, we often uncover unusual projects, places, or connections that don't make the final cut. Instead of keeping it to ourselves, we're pleased to share our weekly Architrivia.
Until it was ousted by China's Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope in July 2016, Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory boasted the largest single-aperture telescope in the world. Its gold standard 305-metre dish antenna stretches across the dense forest, with a 900-ton platform suspended from 500-foot-long cables anchored to three towers. The large limestone sinkholes of the region provide the ideal setting for the massive reflector. Its proximity to the equator also lends the ability for radar capable of studying the ionosphere to examine planets that pass overhead. This "eye into the sky" is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), a national research center operated by SRI International, USRA, and UMET, under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Built in 1963, the Arecibo Observatory operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing observing time, electronics, computer, travel, and logistic support to scientists worldwide. But beyond its scientific value, the massive facility has attained a certain nostalgic fondness in popular culture. It was featured in the 1997 science fiction movie Contact and served as the inspiration for levels in the video games Battlefield 4 and Just Cause 2. Perhaps most notably, Arecibo performed the role of the GoldenEye satellite dish in the climax of the eponymous James Bond film. When the companion video game was released in 1997, it featured a level based on the movie's final battle.
Despite Arecibo's pop culture fame, recent years have been unkind to the observatory. Flat funding levels at the NSF have sparked legitimate concern over the future of this record-breaking facility, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2008. At the end of September 2016, the NSF released a statement announcing solicitation for the future operation of the complex "under conditions of a substantially reduced funding commitment from NSF." The observatory could be completely dismantled should it shut down, with the NSF initiating an environmental impact study to determine the consequences of deconstructing the facility. But a 2006 senior review estimated that returning the site to its previous natural state could cost upwards of $300 million, which could be the life preserver Arecibo needs to stay afloat.
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