
A broken cable smashed a hole 100 feet wide in the Arecibo Observatory - djsumdog
https://www.businessinsider.com/broken-cable-tears-100-foot-hole-in-arecibo-observatory-2020-8
======
rollulus
I always assumed that the bottom of the dish was made out of concrete, but
apparently it's relatively thin and floats above the ground.

Also, the pictures in that article made me feel nostalgic playing Golden Eye
on the N64.

~~~
lostlogin
> Also, the pictures in that article made me feel nostalgic playing Golden Eye
> on the N64.

Recently a mate and I plugged in an n64 to play Golden Eye and spent way too
long messing with the cables before realising that it was displaying correctly
and that the graphics just weren’t that great. A 15 inch CRT hid a lot too.

We still had a great time - no Oddjob usage per house rules. Using him is
cheating.

~~~
s_dev
You'll be glad to know some modders are remaking the game using the Unreal
Engine

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55y17rXdt4&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55y17rXdt4&feature=emb_title)

~~~
sli
Unfortunately, everything surrounding this remake implies that the project is
dead and gone. The Twitter account and the IndieDB entry have both been
deleted.

~~~
s_dev
They were forced in to a rebrand a week ago due to legal threats on using the
007 licence. Dev work is still continuing though.

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brna
Here's a bigger picture of the cable:
[https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2020-08/5f32fb9b2618b96b...](https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2020-08/5f32fb9b2618b96b493620b8.jpg)

Thanks to article on sciencealert.com: [https://www.sciencealert.com/a-broken-
cable-smashed-a-huge-h...](https://www.sciencealert.com/a-broken-cable-
smashed-a-huge-hole-in-the-arecibo-observatory)

~~~
smichel17
That's.. The same article (with credit given, even -- "This article was
originally published on business insider" at the bottom)

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fsckboy
How do radio telescopes track asteroids? I don't imagine that asteroids would
be emitting radio waves, and their small size wouldn't seem to be an advantage
either (though, a few miles across might be plenty to interrupt/reflect radio
wavelengths? I dunno)

~~~
Symmetry
I had to look this up on Wikipedia[1], it can apparently transmit as well as
listen the way that most radio telescopes do and in at up to 20 TW too. I had
frankly thought the most powerful radars in the world were in the 10s of MW
range and this thing has got a dish 305m in diameter compared to the 10-50m
I'm used to for radars tracking satellites in orbit (I used to do software for
that professionally).

I wouldn't have thought doing active radar scans of an astroid out in space
was possible given that radar returns fall off as the 4th power of range. But
given that power and dish size, given that these are large objects being
tracked, and given that they move slowly compared to the radar cone I guess
it's possible after all. But then again one of the first ballistic missile
defense radars accidentally mistook the rising Moon for an attack and almost
caused WWIII[2] so I guess there's precedent, even though the Moon is much
larger and closer. I'm seeing references to it tracking asteroids in the
Apollo group, so relatively nearby[3] and plates which are much larger. I'd
guess that even the biggest asteroid in the main belt, 1 Ceres, would be too
dim for it to see but I'm curious.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory)

[2][https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-
wa...](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904)

[3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_asteroid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_asteroid)

~~~
jaycroft
Regarding the 20TW from the Wikipedia page, that's referring to the EIRP -
effective isotropic radiated power. This is the amount of power that you would
need to radiate from a theoretical antenna with a perfectly spherically
symmetric power distribution. The Arecibo antenna has a fairly narrow beam.
The 20TW EIRP transmitter appears to operate at 2.38GHz. Plugging that
frequency and the 270m diameter, a beamwidth calculator gives me a gain of
about 75dBi. So, yes, it's like a 20TW transmitter, but only one tiny narrow
little slice of it. At 75dBi gain, that's one (10^7.5)th of the total sphere,
about 1 part in 30 million. Or, you could say, if the antenna were radiating
the same power in every direction as it does in it's peak direction, that
would be 30 million times as much power. So, dividing to find the power in
that narrow beam, we get "only" about 600kW radiated in the direction it is
pointing. Add in cable losses and other inefficiencies, and the power output
at the amplifier is probably close to a megawatt.

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dguest
I don't know why the scrolling on businessinsider.com is broken for me, but
this worked:
[https://apnews.com/668bb0219afcc086376c9d56685ab9d0](https://apnews.com/668bb0219afcc086376c9d56685ab9d0)

~~~
Legogris
This can happen on sites where you have an adblocker removing modal overlays
elements but there are still an invisible part or other CSS means limiting
scrolling.

~~~
emsign
For me they blurred the images because of my ad blocker. Or probably because I
have cookies blocked.

~~~
rangibaby
the images loaded in for me, I think it's lazy loading

~~~
londons_explore
lazy internet can't be bothered to deliver the images...

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perezperret
You expect me to believe this wasn't the aliens?

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abnercoimbre
I grew up visiting the Observatory all the time.

Before Trump made my home island famous, Arecibo Observatory was the one place
I could point to mainland American friends so they recognized Puerto Rico
(since it's famous, used in scifi movies, etc.)

Hope the government assists in reconstructing the dish.

~~~
Vivtek
Given HUD still hasn't released the relief funds for Maria in 2017, I'm not
holding my breath on any other help coming here.

There was an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. set in San Juan, though. So now
there's something else mainlanders have heard of.

~~~
abnercoimbre
Ha, indeed..

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dylan604
Seems like such a strange break. I feel like there's supposed to be a dramatic
piece of video in slow-mo showing one strand breaking, then the additional
stress causing the next one to snap, until the final 'plink' before the whole
thing comes crashing down.

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emsign
I hope this wasn't due to underfunding. Old stuff breaks, but it should last
when it is being maintained properly.

~~~
sp332
Not only underfunded, but also damaged in Hurricane Maria in 2017.
[https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/arecibo-
observato...](https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/arecibo-
observatory-6m-upgrade/)

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ChrisMarshallNY
I always say that 99% of my IT issues are bad cables.

Looks like that applies here, as well...

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gadders
That first picture reminds me of a level in a team-based FPS I played briefly.
Can't remember the name. You can send drones out and stuff.

~~~
jack1243star
As another comment points out, probably "Rogue Transmission" in Battlefield 4?

~~~
gadders
That looks very similar, but this one was an older game. I'd look it up but I
was playing it on XBOX Live free trial and I let my subscription lapse..

~~~
dEnigma
"Frontlines: Fuel of War" perhaps? It does have a satellite dish in one level,
and the gameplay prominently features drones as far as I can remember.

[https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/frontlines...](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/frontlines-
fuel-of-war/b/b6/Frontlines309.jpg?width=1920)

[https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/frontlines...](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/frontlines-
fuel-of-war/c/c6/Frontlines308.jpg?width=1920)

Source: [https://www.ign.com/wikis/frontlines-fuel-of-
war/Mutliplayer...](https://www.ign.com/wikis/frontlines-fuel-of-
war/Mutliplayer_part_6)

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oasisbob
Interesting to me that everyone is calling this a "cable".

It might be the combination of climbing/sailing/rigging/nerd ... but I'd never
call that structural element that broke a cable.

The only cables I can think of either carry electrons, photons, or signal
wires (say, a clutch cable). I'm being maybe pedantic, curious what others
think, esp in industry.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
I don't understand how you can be a sailing/rigging nerd and say that isn't a
cable.

Last time I checked nautical cables do not carry photons or signals. Arresting
cables, bowden cables are also cables that do not do so.

~~~
oasisbob
I would call it wire rope, or a support line. If I worked with it often
enough, I'd probably refer to it by size or construction (EHS, 7x7, etc)

I'd argue that a Bowden cable (eg a clutch cable) is primarily carrying a
signal... really though, just thinking through what defines a cable.

By contrast, rope and line are terms with fairly specific meanings.

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stareatgoats
_" the Arecibo Observatory, which searches for aliens"_

It seems clear what happened here. Aliens.

~~~
lostlogin
The abbreviation for the time zone, ET, caused me to pause.

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beepboopbeep
wow, I feel like "Smashed a hole" isn't quite doing that carnage justice. Good
luck to them on the repairs :(

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devalgo
Illuminati preventing us from hearing signals. Aliens Confirmed!!

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lightlyused
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24127343](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24127343)

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moltar
Insert not saying it’s aliens meme

