The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has collapsed.
A few weeks ago it was announced that the telescope would be dismantled, as there were fears that the structure would collapse after damage to its support structures.
According to the American National Science Foundation, the telescope’s instrument platform, which weighs nearly 1 000 tons, fell onto its reflector dish, nearly 150m below it.
The telescope was one of the world’s iconic observatories and was featured in a famous scene in a James Bond movie, GoldenEye. It was completed in 1963 and was the largest of its kind in 2016, when it was surpassed by a Chinese observatory.
The Arecibo telescope was primarily used for radio astronomy and atmospheric science. It was also used in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme.
In 1973, it broadcast the famous Arecibo message to the M13 Star Cluster – a basic message carrying information about humanity and Earth. The message wasn’t a serious attempt to communicate with alien life but rather a demonstration of human technological ingenuity.