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Huge Puerto Rico Radio Telescope, Already Damaged, Collapses

Associated Press

   ARECIBO, PUERTO RICO - A huge, already damaged radio telescope in
   Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for
   more than half a century completely collapsed on Tuesday.

   The telescope's 900-ton receiver platform and its Gregorian dome -- a
   structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary
   reflectors -- fell onto the northern portion of the vast reflector dish
   more than 400 feet below.

   The U.S. National Science Foundation had earlier announced it would
   close the radio telescope. An auxiliary cable snapped in August,
   causing a 30-meter (100-foot) gash on the 305-meter-wide
   (1,000-foot-wide) dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung
   above it. Then a main cable broke in early November.

   The collapse stunned many scientists who had relied on what was until
   recently the largest radio telescope in the world.

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