SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The giant, aging cables that support one of the world's largest single-dish radio telescopes are slowly unraveling in Puerto Rico.
It's pushing Arecibo Observatory to the brink of collapse.
Last week, one of the telescope’s main cables snapped, further mangling a reflector dish that had sustained massive damage in August when an auxiliary cable broke.
The telescope has been used to track asteroids headed to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and helped scientists trying to determine if a planet is habitable.
The funding for repairs hasn’t been worked out with federal agencies, and scientists say time is running out.