WEBVTT - What Did the Arecibo Radio Telescope Help Us Learn?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff. Lauren Volga bam here for fifty seven years.

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<v Speaker 1>The air Cebo Observatory Radio and radar telescope facility, located

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<v Speaker 1>about twelve miles or nineteen kilometers south of the city

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<v Speaker 1>of air Cebo in Puerto Rico, was one of astronomy's

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<v Speaker 1>greatest treasures until recently. Air Cebo had the biggest radio

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<v Speaker 1>telescope in the world, and its ability to detect distant

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<v Speaker 1>signals made it one of the world's most powerful tools

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<v Speaker 1>for studying both planets and moons in our own Solar

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<v Speaker 1>system and mysterious objects in distant regions of the universe.

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<v Speaker 1>Over the years, scientists used it to determine Mercury's rotation

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<v Speaker 1>rate and map the surface of Venus, to discover the

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<v Speaker 1>first binary pulsar and the first known exoplanet. Air Cebo's

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<v Speaker 1>researchers also made important findings about the properties and orbits

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<v Speaker 1>of asteroids that are potentially hazardous to Earth. Back in

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<v Speaker 1>four air Cebo was even used to broadcast a radio

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<v Speaker 1>message toward a globular star cluster twenty one thousand light

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<v Speaker 1>years from Earth, filled with data that could potentially be

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<v Speaker 1>deciphered by extraterrestrials to produce a simple illustration depicting a

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<v Speaker 1>stick figure human, our solar system, DNA, and some of

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<v Speaker 1>the biochemicals of early life. The message was designed by

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<v Speaker 1>astronomer Frank Drake with the help of Carl Sagan and

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<v Speaker 1>other scientists. The telescope's deterioration became evident back in August

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<v Speaker 1>when a support cable failed and slipped out of its dish,

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<v Speaker 1>leaving a one hundred foot or thirty meter gash in

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<v Speaker 1>the dish. Engineers worked to try to figure out how

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<v Speaker 1>to repair the damage and determine the integrity of the structure,

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<v Speaker 1>but then on November six, a main cable on the

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<v Speaker 1>same tower broke, as well, a hint that other cables

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<v Speaker 1>might be weaker than initially believed. At that point, an

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<v Speaker 1>engineering evaluation determined that it would be too risky even

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<v Speaker 1>to do more repair work on the telescope. On November nineteenth,

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<v Speaker 1>the National Science Foundation announced that the Observatories Radio Telescope

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<v Speaker 1>would be discommissioned and dismantled, But before that could happen,

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<v Speaker 1>on December one, the instrument platform collapsed. This nine hundred

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<v Speaker 1>ton instrument platform was suspended by cables attached to three

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<v Speaker 1>towers at a height of four hundred and fifty feet

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<v Speaker 1>that's about a hundred and forty above the telescope's massive

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<v Speaker 1>radio telescope dish. It's one thousand feet or three hundred

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<v Speaker 1>and fifty in diameter. The platform suddenly broke away from

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<v Speaker 1>its supports and fell. The National Science Foundation has authorized

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<v Speaker 1>repairs to air sebos lied our instrument and a smaller

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<v Speaker 1>telescope used for atmospheric science, but rebuilding air Sebos radio

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<v Speaker 1>telescope would cost an estimated three hundred and fifty million dollars.

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<v Speaker 1>A National Science Foundation official indicated at a December third

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<v Speaker 1>press conference that it could take years for the federal

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<v Speaker 1>government to make a decision about whether to do that,

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<v Speaker 1>but in the meanwhile, they said that the observatory would

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<v Speaker 1>not close completely. In addition to operating the smaller dish

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<v Speaker 1>and the lidar instrument, the visitors center would remain open.

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<v Speaker 1>The sudden and shocking apparent end of air Cebo's radio

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<v Speaker 1>telescope caused an outpouring of remembrances on Twitter with the

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<v Speaker 1>hashtag what air Cebo means to me, both from researchers

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<v Speaker 1>who had used the telescope, and ordinary people who had

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<v Speaker 1>visited the observatory and been inspired by it. People have

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<v Speaker 1>chosen to get married there, and it was used as

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<v Speaker 1>a setting in the James Bond movie Golden Eye and

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<v Speaker 1>sci fi drama Contact. Air Cebo was built back in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen sixty three at a cost of nine point three

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<v Speaker 1>million dollars, which is close to eighty million in today's money.

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<v Speaker 1>It came to exist due in large part to the

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<v Speaker 1>efforts of Cornell University physicist William E. Gordon, who was

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<v Speaker 1>interested in studying the Earth's ionosphere. Gordon shows Puerto Rico

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<v Speaker 1>for the site because the sun, moon, and planets passed

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<v Speaker 1>almost to rerectly overhead, plus a natural synkhole south of

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<v Speaker 1>the city of air Sebo provided a cost effective way

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<v Speaker 1>to support his design of a spherical bowl shaped reflector

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<v Speaker 1>planted in the ground with a movable receiver hanging over it.

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<v Speaker 1>Pretty quickly, scientists realized the observatory would also be useful

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<v Speaker 1>in the then new fields of radio and radar astronomy.

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<v Speaker 1>In nineteen sixty five, one of the observatory's first great

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<v Speaker 1>accomplishments was to discover that the true rotation rate of Mercury,

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<v Speaker 1>the nearest planet to the Sun was just fifty nine days,

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<v Speaker 1>not eight as had been previously estimated. In nine sixty eight,

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<v Speaker 1>air SEBO scientists showed that sporadic radio pulses from the

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<v Speaker 1>direction of the crab Nebulus supernova remnant came from a

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<v Speaker 1>pulsar located at the center of the nebula. Other important

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<v Speaker 1>discoveries followed. In nineteen seventy four, air Sebo was used

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<v Speaker 1>to discover the first pulsar in a binary system, which

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<v Speaker 1>provided important confirmation for Albert einstein mines theory of general relativity,

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<v Speaker 1>and for which the astronomers involved were awarded the Nobel Prize.

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<v Speaker 1>In In the nine eighties and nineties, scientists used air

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<v Speaker 1>Cebo to make more discoveries about the Solar System. They

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<v Speaker 1>used the telescope's radar to produce the first ever maps

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<v Speaker 1>of the surface of the planet Venus, whose thick cloud

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<v Speaker 1>layer had blocked optical telescopes view. They also found that

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<v Speaker 1>despite Mercury's high surface temperature, the planet still has ice

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<v Speaker 1>in shadowed craters at its north and south poles. In

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<v Speaker 1>air cebo was instrumental and yet another monumentous first. The

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<v Speaker 1>discovery of exoplanets, which are planets outside of our Solar

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<v Speaker 1>system orbiting around a pulsar. In two thousand three, air

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<v Speaker 1>Sebo provided evidence for the existence of hydrocarbon lakes on Titan,

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<v Speaker 1>a moon of Saturn, and in recent years, air Cebo

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<v Speaker 1>has continued to gather important information, including helping to calculate

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<v Speaker 1>distances that are important for understanding the universe. It's also

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<v Speaker 1>produced radar images of Mars that revealed lava flows and

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<v Speaker 1>other geological features that hadn't been detected in visual images

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<v Speaker 1>of the red planet. Today's episode was written by Patrick J.

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<v Speaker 1>Tiger and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this

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<v Speaker 1>and lots of other far seeing topics, visit how stuff

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<v Speaker 1>works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart

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