About this property
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a 305 m (1,000 ft) spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. On August 10 and November 6, 2020, two of the receiver's support cables broke and the NSF announced that it would decommission the telescope. The telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope would not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site. The observatory also includes a smaller radio telescope, a LIDAR facility, and a visitor center, which remained operational after the telescope's collapse. The asteroid 4337 Arecibo was named after the observatory by Steven J. Ostro, in recognition of the observatory's contributions to the characterization of Solar System bodies.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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When was National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation) listed on the National Register?
National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 22, 2015.
What type of historic resource is National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation)?
National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation) is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation)?
The period of significance for National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Additional Documentation) is recorded as the listed era.
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