The Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope in the municipality of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. This observatory is operated by University of Central Florida, Yang Enterprises and UMET, under cooperative agreement with the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory is the sole facility of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), which is the formal name of the observatory. From its construction in the 1960s until 2011, the observatory was managed by Cornell University.
For more than 50 years, from its completion in 1963 until July 2016 when the Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China was completed, the Arecibo Observatory’s 1,000-foot (305-meter) radio telescope was the world’s largest single-aperture telescope. It is used in three major areas of research: radio astronomy, atmospheric science, and radar astronomy.
Many scientific discoveries have been made with the observatory. On April 7, 1964, soon after it began operating, Gordon Pettengill’s team used it to determine that the rotation period of Mercury was not 88 days, as formerly thought, but only 59 days. In 1968, the discovery of the periodicity of the Crab Pulsar (33 milliseconds) by Lovelace and others provided the first solid evidence that neutron stars exist.
I flew past the observatory back in the early 80's on a trip to Mayaguez from San Juan. It's pretty impressive from a couple thousand feet up.
ReplyDeleteNemo
For many years, I , along with numerous other netizens around the globe, have been volunteering the use of our personal computers to analyze and exchange raw data for a variety of scientific research projects, including the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (i.e., "S.E.T.I."), which used the Aricebo Observatory, in addition to other radio telescopes, all of which is coordinated by the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (i.e., "B.O.I.N.C."), located at the University of California Berkeley.
ReplyDeleteHere is the computer web site URL where you access these programs:
https://boinc.berkeley.edu
We live in a marvelous age, when it has become necessary for research institutes to distribute to private computers much of the work, because there aren't enough research facilities or personnel to follow up on every breaking lead.
None of these projects interferes with anything else I do on my computer, and I do a LOT!
In addition to B.O.I.N.C., my personal computer also analyzes and exchanges raw data for scientific research projects conducted by the World Community Grid and Science United, whose web site URLs are:
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.jsp
https://scienceunited.org/
The BERKELEY OPEN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR NETWORK COMPUTING is supported by the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION.
Thank you.
John Robert Mallernee
Vernal, Utah
The Arecibo observatory featured in the James Bond film, Goldeneye.
ReplyDeleteI remembered James Bond movie as soon as I saw the photo! Cool
DeleteIt would appear that Yang Enterprises and the Obama admin's DOJ had a little tiff over some tires... https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/united-states-files-lawsuit-against-urs-federal-services-and-yang-enterprises-alleging
ReplyDeleteI've been all over, under and on top of that thing. Shot a documentary for the National Science Foundation there. I remember one of our cameramen dropped a lens when we were shooting from the cab above the middle of it...long way down.
ReplyDeleteI read the reason that was built was for spying on soviet radars. When the moon was in the proper position, they could catch reflections off it for analyzing. EME receiving. That is one neat place.
ReplyDelete