While U.S. Ponders Closing Arecibo China Builds Something Much Bigger
Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and Initiate Section 106 Consultation for Proposed Changes to Arecibo Observatory Operations, Arecibo, Puerto Rico and Notice of Public Scoping Meetings and Comment Period, NSF
“Through a series of academic community-based reviews, NSF has identified the need to divest several facilities from its portfolio in order to retain the balance of capabilities needed to deliver the best performance on the key science of the present decade and beyond. In 2012, NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences’ (AST’s) portfolio review committee recommended that “continued AST involvement in Arecibo . . . be re-evaluated later in the decade in light of the science opportunities and budget forecasts at that time.” In 2016, NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences’ (AGS’) portfolio review committee recommended significantly decreasing funding for the Space and Atmospheric Sciences portion of the Arecibo mission. In response to these evolving recommendations, in 2016, NSF completed a feasibility study to inform and define options for the observatory’s future disposition that would involve significantly decreasing or eliminating NSF funding of Arecibo.”
World’s largest radio telescope nears completion
“China’s gigantic Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is nearing completion in China’s southwestern Guizhou Province and will soon begin searching the skies for phenomena including signs of extraterrestrial life. Construction of 500m diameter, 1.2 billion yuan (US$185mln) radio telescope began in 2011 and is on course to come online in September, when it will become the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope.”
I strongly believe we should retain the Arecibo Observatory so that we don’t have to rely on a foreign entity to allow our scientists access to the new antenna.
Well, I have no idea how US astronomers could apply for time on this planned, Chinese telescope. But a better choice might be joining the Square Kilometer Array consortium. That would be better than either Arecibo or the Chinese telescope. Although saying this is a little ironic: SKA is useless for my own professional interests, since it only goes down to 50 MHz. Just going down a little further, to 30 MHz would have been nice.
If we invited China to joint the ISS program they might in return invite US astronomers to use the FAST. However I agree that a large phased array would be vastly superior in resolution if not in sensitivity per se to a sperical fixed antenna of similar area. Still it is disappointing that NSF no longer has the finding. It is never easy to convince the taxpayers to invest in basic research
The point about sensitivity is often lost when discussing these large phased arrays.
Who was the .com billionaire who was interested in underwriting about 10% of Arecibo’s budget, if he could use 10% of the time for SETI research.
You can usually tell the health of a country and its culture by the monuments that it chooses to build or mothball.
Proof positive of a society in decline. No human space flight capability, dumped the Superconducting Super Collider, Fermilab Tevatron shutdown, ceding superiority in ground based optical astronomy, now serious discussion of closing Arecibo. Hey, its okay though, Dancing with the Stars is on tonight. <facepalm>