Listening to the Cosmos

A moonlit night at the Arecibo observatory, a world-known radio telescope in Puerto Rico. For most of its life, the observatory’s 305 meter radio telescope was the largest single-aperture telescope ever constructed. The telescope was visually very distinctive and has been used in the filming of few notable motion pictures. The telescope received additional international recognition in 1999 when it began to collect data for the SETI@home project, looking for messages from extraterrestrial intelligence. In this unique view part of the dish, the receiver array and a 22-degree lunar halo are visible.

Unfortunately, on December 1, 2020 the telescope’s support structure, antenna, and dome assembly all fell into the dish. [Read more]