An educational center could open on the site of the famous Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico early next year, but astronomical research will not be among its missions. At least not for now. The National Science Foundation This week it chose four institutions to take charge of the site transition, with an investment of $5.5 million over the next five years. It will be a center for STEM education, with a focus on life sciences and computer science.
The NSF first revealed its plans for an educational center in Arecibo last year after months of uncertainty about its future, confirming then that the telescope would not be rebuilt. The observatory’s main radio telescope suffered a catastrophic collapse in December 2020, when its 900-tonne hanging instrument platform fell onto the dish below, destroying the 300-meter-wide structure. The collapse abruptly ended the telescope’s operations after nearly six decades of observations, during which it became a critical tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and advancing our understanding of the universe.
The new educational center, called the Arecibo Center for Culturally Relevant and Inclusive Science Education, Computing Skills, and Community Engagement (Arecibo C3 for short), is expected to open in early 2024. It will be collaboratively led by the Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor. , University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
While there are still other working instruments at the site, for which researchers had hoped to receive funding to continue scientific operations, the NSF confirmed to that this is not in its current plans, although it will accept and consider proposals. The telescope’s impact will be presented in an interactive exhibit at the new center. said the executive director of C3 of Arecibo, astronomer Wanda Díaz-Merced. Nature“We will build on Arecibo’s heritage, but we will do so in a broader sense.”
