Arecibo radiotelescope collapses, Puerto Rico

Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 27 February 2020 at 15:07:19 UTC
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Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 03 December 2020 at 10:23:02 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 05 December 2020 at 22:36:44 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 08 December 2020 at 15:07:21 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Infrastructure, spatial, natural disaster, hurricane, cyclone, earthquake, Puerto Rico
Fig. 1 - S2 (27.02.2020) - Lying in Puerto Rico, the Arecibo Telescope was a 305m radiotelescope built into a natural sinkhole.
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Fig. 2 - S2 (08.12.2020) - Completed in November 1963, the Arecibo Telescope was the world's largest single-aperture telescope until 2016.
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Fig. 3 - S1 (21.11.2020) - The Arecibo Telescope was primarily used for research in radio astronomy, atmospheric science & radar astronomy.
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It was also used for the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program.
Fig. 4 - S1 (03.12.2020) - The telescope appeared in films such as for the climactic fight scene in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995).
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The telescope was damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and was affected by earthquakes in 2019 and 2020. Two cable breaks, one in August 2020 and a second in November 2020, prompted to announce that the telescope would be decommissioned and dismantled.
Fig. 5 - S1 (23.11.2020) - Before it could be decommissioned, several of the remaining support cables suffered a critical failure.
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Fig. 6 - S1 (05.12.2020) - The support structure, antenna, and dome assembly all fell into the dish on December 1, 2020.
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The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency or the European Union.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2025, processed by VisioTerra.
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