Scientists want to build a new, very different Arecibo Telescope to replace fallen icon space.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from space.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Collapse of Puerto Rico s Iconic Telescope newyorker.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newyorker.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Visitors gawk at Chang’e-5 lunar samples on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing. TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS
China’s premier astronomy and planetary resources lure foreign collaborators
Apr. 1, 2021 , 11:15 AM
For a generation, China played scientific catch-up to more advanced nations, but the tables are turning. China has the world’s largest radio telescope and the first Moon rocks in 45 years. Now, it is offering foreign researchers access to those scientific treasures. Many are eager, but others are uneasy about what they see as collaborating with an authoritarian regime.
In December 2020, the Chang’e-5 mission returned 1.7 kilograms of rock and soil from the Moon the first lunar samples since 1976, and a chance for researchers to obtain dates that could help unravel Solar System history. On 18 January, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) confirmed it would encourage “joint international research” on the samples, and it may begin
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On 1 December 2020, the 900-ton instrument platform of the Arecibo Observatory crashed into its dish, which is cradled in a natural sinkhole. RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
How the famed Arecibo telescope fell and how it might rise again
Jan. 14, 2021 , 11:52 AM
In the early morning of 10 August 2020, Sravani Vaddi, a postdoc astronomer at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was working from home, but her thoughts were at Arecibo’s giant radio telescope. At 2 a.m., she had one precious hour to focus the 305-meter dish on NGC 7469, a distant galaxy. At its center, two supermassive black holes wheeled around each other, following an earlier galaxy merger. Vaddi wanted to see whether having two dark hearts instead of the usual one made the galaxy shine more brightly by stirring up gases and stoking starbirth. Radio emissions from the glowing gases would help her find out.