Man. This is depressing. One of the few good things funded by the government gone. Was even going to be decommissioned.
Puerto Rico has been in terrible financial straits ever since hurricane Maria. I had a coworker who grew up there and went back in 2018, and he said that entire neighborhoods in his hometown had just disappeared. Not damaged or replaced, just gone. The lack of support from the United States was unbelievably cruel.
Sad posadas noises :posad:
All is not lost tho, China has a bigger radio observatory that's actually well funded.
China has a bigger radio observatory that’s actually well funded.
Sorry to be a g*mer, but isn't the one that's in battlefield 4?
This may be a too-soon moment, but in a way the Puerto Rico observatory is also in the game since the dish collapses :deeper-sadness:
Yet somehow we always have enough money for wars and bailing out billionaires.
Here's a list of other radio astronomy observatories, proposed and in use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_telescopes Some radio telescopes are able to use multiple dishes and interferometry to function as well as larger single dish observatories like Arecibo.
Another (actually larger, by ~650ft) telescope is China's FAST (Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope
Large optical telescopes list from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_reflecting_telescopes
It sucks. We're in mourning today. Hey, at least we're getting a chic fil a :agony-consuming:
