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| Damage to the monster dish at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico last year following the failure of support cables. (University of Central Florida photo) |
The head of astrophysics at the Arecibo Observatory has proposed a plan to replace the iconic radiotelescope – which was destroyed last year due to failure of support cables – with a bigger and more advanced instrument.
According to Newsline, the proposed Next Generation Arecibo Telescope would be built on a flat 300-meter-wide platform that could be hydraulically tilted to angles of 45 degrees or greater. The platform would contain more than 1000 closely-packed 9-meter dishes, each with its own receiver covering a broader frequency range than the original radiotelescope. The $400 million proposal was presented to the National Science Foundation in January.
