Telescopi on line

The Arecibo Observatory is located approximately 12 miles south-southwest from Arecibo, Puerto Rico (near the extreme southwestern corner of Arecibo pueblo). It is operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The observatory works as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) although both names are officially used to refer to it. NAIC more properly refers to the organisation that runs both the observatory and associated labs and offices at Cornell University.

The observatory's 305-m radio telescope is the largest single-aperture telescope ever to be constructed. (Compare "multiple aperture telescope". ) It carries out three major areas of research: radio astronomy, aeronomy (using both the 305-m telescope and the observatory's lidar facility), and radar observations of solar system objects. 29 Luglio 2006. Usage of the telescope is gained by submitting proposals to an independent board of referees.

The telescope is visually distinctive and has been used in the filming of two notable movies: as the villain's antenna in the James Bond movie GoldenEye and as itself in the movie Contact. The telescope received international recognition in 1999 when it began to collect data for the SETI@home project.

General information

The Arecibo telescope is distinguished by its enormous size: the main collecting dish is 305 m in diameter, constructed inside the depression left by a karst sinkhole. The dish is the largest curved focusing dish on Earth, giving Arecibo the largest electromagnetic-wave gathering capacity. The Arecibo telescope's dish surface is made of 38,778 perforated aluminium panels, each measuring about 1 m by 2 m (3 ft by 6 ft), supported by a mesh of steel cables.