The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, for decades the home of the world’s largest radio telescope, will be an astronomical observatory no more.
with the understanding that NSF funding would decline over its 5-year term from $8 million to $2 million. Brisset says the facility currently costs about $7 million annually to run.
NSF is now asking for proposals to transform the observatory into the Arecibo Center for STEM Education and Research, offering funding totaling $5 million over 5 years. It says the funding does not include support for remaining instruments at the site, including a 12-meter radio telescope, a radio spectrometer, and a suite of optical laser instruments for studying the upper atmosphere, known as lidar.
Hopes of constructing a new large telescope at Arecibo appear remote. Since the telescope’s collapse, Arecibo staff and other researchers have drawn up an array of plans for a replacement. But several recent reports designed to help the U.S. research community set funding priorities—largely produced before the telescope collapsed—noted that much of the research performed at Arecibo can now be done elsewhere. One review said Arecibo’s ability to discover new pulsars had been unmatched.
The observatory has always been “brilliant” at STEM education and outreach, Rankin says, welcoming about 100,000 people per year to its visitor center and training teachers from all over Latin America. But part of that success, she says, was due to the presence of a strong research program. Arecibo “could have that role because the education part was on the same grounds as a place carrying out remarkable science in three different fields,” she says.
Astrobiologist Abel Méndez of the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo, also fears any new education center won’t have the same impact if the observatory’s research program fades. “It’s a shame, especially for the education and science of Puerto Rico,” he says. “It’s definitely something we will miss.”
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