It’s fairly unusual to have a common news item discussed in This Space, but this isn’t exactly common news. You’ve certainly heard that the platform on the Arecibo Observatory Radio Telescope collapsed today.

Of course, it’s relevant here because what radio amateur hasn’t looked at the huge array at Arecibo and simply said to themselves:

Not just a radio telescope, but a radar telescope- the biggest, most powerful on the planet. As usual, Scott Manley has covered this Space Related Thing quite well in just a few minutes. If you aren’t subscribed to him, then you may wish to check out his channel for all things SpaceX, NASA, and rocket science related. Here’s the video below which uses MS Paint of all things to do a breakdown of the collapse.

More information for your edification:

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/01/940767001/arecibo-observatory-telescope-collapses-ending-an-era-of-world-class-research
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/arecibo-radio-telescopes-massive-instrument-platform-has-collapsed/
https://www.space.com/arecibo-radio-telescope-collapses

We’ll have more QRP content coming your way very very soon.