The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico
The family and I visited one of the most amazing feats of computing, mechanical engineering, and science: The Arecibo Observatory. It remained the world's largest single-aperture telescope for over 50 years up until 2016.
When we visited, they were cleaning the telescope for the first time since the 1970's. The workers have to wear special shoes to distribute their weight. I was able to zoom in with my phone (and again through the viewer) to just barely see them working. The cleaning doesn't change the performance, but it sure helps with public relations because if people see a dirty old dish, they think it's not being used (even though they use it every day). Hurricane Maria broke a part of one of the antennas, but they already secured the funding to either repair or replace it. The other part of the telescope (the Gregorian sub-reflector) is still working great.
The visitor center had a lot of great stuff inside.
Being able to touch the 350 pound Gibeon Meteorite from 1836 was pretty cool. I've never seen so many meteorites. They survived a trip through space, through our atmosphere, and landed intact! How incredible is that!? They had a 3.4 billion-year-old moon rock along with a piece of mars which was sheared off by an astroid and landed on earth. I also liked how they had some example the old original computer equipment there. I loved seeing a real Nobel Prize won by Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse in 1974 for working at the observatory studying gravity via a pair of neutron stars.
You can view the video on DTube by clicking the image above or via YouTube here:
I hope you enjoy the video of our visit!
Video background music from HookSounds with Creative Commons license.
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
funny to have your daughter go:
but that dish is cool though the way its in the middle of the jungle.
If anyone would ever be beamed up by aliens it would be the guys cleaning the dish.
they have the strongest signal
Hahaha. Yeah, we had a great time, but the kids were tired after a long drive to get there over an hour and a good little walk up to the visitor center. I tried to hold them over just a little bit longer with popsicles. :) Over all, they had pretty good attitudes.
Way cool to see. Glad to hear you and your beautiful family are finding some really cool spots.
It's been amazing! I've loved this trip so much.
Hope you were also able to go to the Camuy Caves & Caverns that are right next door to the Observatory! They are also wonderful to experience with the family. Glad you are enjoying the island!
All our kids aren't old enough yet, but I definitely want to check those out some day.
I actually didn't even realize until now that they used this location during the filming of Contact.
In the movie theater they have there where they show a great little documentary on the history and use of the telescope, they have movie posters up of both Contact and James Bond 007 Goldeneye.
one of my favorite scenes in contact with jodie foster. presume you've seen that right? ;) - you should watch it while you are there.
It's one of my favorite movies. :)
Read about the telescope before, never expected it to look like this
I am little bit jealous of you, you were on such a occasion, first cleaning of the world's largest single-aperture telescope. I hope you have enjoyed there.
Nice, glad u enjoyed it. I was travelling to Aricebo with my wife and we drive around 1.5 hours up all these crazy winding rounds (as u know) and when we finally reached the entrance, the guard told us they were closed to outside visitors due to some maintenance going on for the next 3 months! My fault for not checking ahead, but something to look fowrard to for a potential future trip.
Side note how are things there post the hurricane, as far as roads and infrastructure away from the main parts in Jan Juan?
What a beautiful place that is specially greenery out there,
Have a great time @lukestokes.
Great adventure you had been able to visit the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. A really magnificent telescope and been able to touch and have a feel of Gibeon Meteorite from 1836 was pretty cool.
Waiting to see your next adventure in Puerto Rico as you enjoy your lovely stay .. nice post and video @lukestokes