Arecibo Radio Telescope

Arecibo Radio Telescope

About 50 miles from the capital City of San Juan in Puerto Rico can be found the town of Arecibo. Like most of the towns in Puerto Rico, especially those located near the north shores along the Atlantic Ocean, there are numerous beaches, hotels, restaurants, museums and other local attractions to be found in Arecibo. What makes this town unique from any other place in the entire island of Puerto Rico however, is the existence of the Arecibo Observatory in this Puerto Rican town.

Operated none other than by the Cornell University, the Arecibo Observatory is considered as a national research center focuses on three major fields of research. The Arecibo Observatory is a center for aeronomy (study of the atmosphere), radio astronomy (study of celestial objects involving radio frequencies), and radar astronomy (study of astronomical objects using reflection of radars and microwaves). It is also sometimes called the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center or NAIC although NAIC is more properly used to mean the general association that manages both the observatory and the related departments the Cornell University. Aside from that, the Arecibo Observatory is also associated and provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more popularly known as NASA.

You might wonder what is so special about the Arecibo Observatory when there are several others like it found in places all over the world. The answer is rather simple. The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is considered a most notable observatory because it is home to the Arecibo Radio Telescope.

The Arecibo Radio Telescope in no ordinary radio telescope, it is in fact, the largest single-dish radio telescope you will ever find on the face of the planet at this moment. Imagine an enormous dish-like construction made of reflective materials, mainly perforated aluminum, spanning more than 1000 feet or about 305 meters and you would have a vague idea of the impressive size that the Arecibo radio telescope has. The dish-like structure is rather deep, about 167 feet deep in fact, and the entire construction including other parts of the telescope found around the dish covers a minimum of 20 acres of land.

This huge radio telescope however, is also comprised of several other high-tech parts including reflectors and antennas hanging more than 400 feet in the air through steel beams, bridges and cables. All these parts, when used together create not just the largest, but also the most sensitive radio telescope in the entire world. The gigantic dish is vital to the radio telescope because it acts like a curved focusing antenna, resembling something like an artificial giant eye which could see a long distance and detect weak, almost imperceptible, movements and signals.