The Irony Was Not Lost on Us
It’s heartbreaking to all of us of a certain age, knowing that the giant observatory in Puerto Rico is no more.
What’s left of it isn’t pretty, and the ruins show nothing of the amazing legacy of this extraordinary instrument.
This aerial view shows the damage at the Arecibo Observatory after its 900-ton receiver platform fell 450 feet and smashed onto the radio dish below.
Photo by RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images
The final collapse happened shortly after the last episode of RELATIVITY aired. And as you might imagine, we were award of the irony; apparently once we were through, the Arecibo Observatory was no longer needed.
The always-insightful physics-and-astronomy enthusiast Scott Manley posted an excellent video on his famous YouTube channel, explaining and exploring the collapse in glorious detail, including video footage of the moment when the aging cables finally snapped and the 900-ton instrument platform came crashing down into the dish:
But!
We want to reassure all the continuity nerds in our devoted audience: the immense thing that collapsed is not the giant dish depicted in our logo, and never was. And Mission Control Arecibo — home to the dauntless Sophia and her team — was not harmed in any way by this collapse. Because both the antenna in the logo and Mission Control Arecibo are, from our perspective, still in the future.
So apparently — obviously — some greater, more magnificent instrument will soon rise from this location, employing technologies which may not yet exist.
And in fact …
… there is a fundraising campaign going on now for something they’re calling “NGAT” — for Next Generation Arecibo Telescope.
You can read all about NGAT on the Arecibo Observatory’s official web site…!