Information - telescope in Puerto Rico set to be demolished after structure becomes unsafe

[westernsultan]

https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/goldeneye-telescope-demolished-puerto-rico-134600204.html

 

[Lord Oort]

Not a fucking hope of getting anywhere near that

 

[Mr Sam]

This chap explains it really good in simple terms and in totally over my head terms.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Not a fucking hope of getting anywhere near that

Thats a shame, Id love to recreate the Bond "slide down the dish" but I imagine Puerto Rico is not the sort of place u want to be caught up to no good!

 

[Lerosbif]

Well apparently the structure has collapsed of its own accord before they had a chance to demolish it properly

 

[Bertie Bollockbrains]

The collapse was caught on a permanent camera. Theis YouTube video then ends with drone footage of the wreckage:

Guess it's pretty obvious now why it is being decommissioned.

To be fair it has been operating since the 1960s and has more than justified it's cost. This is where gravitational waves were first indirectly detected in 1974 - which means a lot to physicists as it was the final missing link to the Standard Model of Particle Physics (I wont go into too much detail). There is a replacement large-aperture radio telescope located in China that came online in 2016, and at 500m diameter is a fair bit larger than this one.

 

[wormster]

The large dish may have been lost, but, there are 2 other experiments running close by that are still very active.

 

[mookster]

Spectacular video of it. As much as its sad to see the demise I love videos of collapses and stuff like that.