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Arecibo Observatory Fact Sheet
The world’s largest fully operational radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory
in Puerto Rico, soon will be under new management. A consortium led by the
University of Central Florida in Orlando will start formal transition activities
to take on the operations and management of the National Science Foundation’s
observatory.
Arecibo Observatory: Overview and History
Built into a sinkhole in a mountain range in northwest Puerto Rico, the
telescope’s huge primary disc was used to discover the first exoplanets and
detect organic molecules outside our galaxy.
The Arecibo Observatory includes 118 acres; its reflector covers 18 acres – or
the size of nearly 24 football fields.
When completed in 1963, the observatory cost $9.3 million.
The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor
for their work with Arecibo in monitoring a binary pulsar, providing a strict
test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the first evidence for the
existence of gravitational waves. Today, pulsars are being used to search for
gravitational waves through incredibly accurate timing with the Arecibo
telescope.
The telescope has been featured in several films and television series,
including GoldenEye, Contact and The X-Files.
New Management:
Arecibo Observatory Management Team is the name of the management team in the
NSF contract. It refers to partners University of Central Florida, Universidad
Metropolitana and Yang Enterprises, Inc.
The team plans to expand the capabilities of the telescope. The new
collaboration will allow the observatory to continue contributing to space
science and will open up new opportunities to students and faculty in Central
Florida, Puerto Rico and beyond.
The observatory will continue to offer scientists from around the world an
opportunity to pursue radio, atmospheric science and pulsar astronomy research.
The new agreement also ensures that the observatory will continue to be
available to help track potentially dangerous near-Earth objects.
The agreement is valued at $20.15 million, subject to the availability of funds,
over five years and is scheduled to begin April 1.
Once the transition is complete, faculty members and researchers from UCF will
have the opportunity to work with scientists and other personnel at Arecibo. UCF
conducts a variety of space-related research, mostly focused on planetary
sciences. The telescope offers UCF faculty and students an opportunity to pursue
new fields within space research including atmospheric science and radio
astronomy. Likewise, scientists at Arecibo and students will have the
opportunity to travel to UCF to potentially work on projects with experts in
Orlando.
What research is done at the Arecibo Observatory?
The Arecibo Planetary Radar is used to study celestial bodies in our
solar system such as planets, moons, asteroids and comets. Directed by the
1,000-foot reflector, a powerful beam of radio energy is transmitted in the
direction of the target object. A small portion of this energy is reflected by
the target back in the direction of Earth. This radio echo is processed and then
analyzed to yield information about the size, shape, spin, density, composition,
surface properties and geology (e.g., ridges, craters and boulders) of the
target object.
The Arecibo Planetary Radar System can measure the distance to an asteroid,
typically millions of kilometers away, with a precision of meters; it can
measure the speed of an asteroid, typically tens of kilometers per second, with
a precision of millimeters per second. Arecibo’s precision can greatly refine
asteroid orbits, aiding NASA in its congressionally mandated mission to study
near-Earth objects and help assess the impact hazard of potentially hazardous
objects. The types of space research most commonly conducted at Arecibo are
planetary science, atmospheric science and pulsar.
Discoveries:
2017. Arecibo discovered two strange pulsars that undergo a "cosmic
vanishing act" – sometimes they are there, and then for very long periods of
time they are not. This has upended the widely held view that all pulsars are
the orderly ticking clocks of the universe.
2016. Arecibo discovered the first repeating fast radio bursts, which are
millisecond radio pulses that appear to be extragalactic.
1992. Arecibo discovered the first-known exoplanet. In subsequent
observations, an entire planetary system was found around the pulsar PSR
1257+12.
1981. Arecibo produced the first radar maps of the surface of Venus.
Optical images show only the top of the thick cloud layer.
1967. Arecibo discovered that the rotation rate of Mercury is 59 days,
not the previously estimated 88 days. The rotation is not tidally locked, but
rather the rate is an orbital resonance with two orbits for every three
rotations.
CONTACTS:
Heather Smith, UCF Communications, 407-823-5828,
Heather.Smith@ucf.edu
Ricardo Correa, Arecibo Observatory, 787-878-2612, ext. 615,
rcorrea@naic.edu
Joshua Chamot, National Science Foundation, 703-292-4489,
jchamot@nsf.gov
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