Behind the Scenes at the Arecibo Radio Telescope
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2024
- We visited the Arecibo Radio Telescope for today's video on Tom's channel. Matt was wearing a GoPro on his helmet throughout the visit, so here's what he could see!
MATT: / unnamedculprit | TOM: / tomscottgo
How The Arecibo Radio Telescope Could Help Save The World:
• How The Arecibo Telesc...
Thank you to everyone at the Arecibo Radio Telescope for your time and giving us so much access!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #1 НАЧАЛО ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ [Новый сезон] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/380Q7gLWGvk/mqdefault.jpg)
Tom: "It's survived fifty years it's going to be fine."
That statement didn't age well 😬
Aged like fine milk
So...well that ain't a thing no more
the Telescope: "everything was not fine"
it's still fine. Finely scatert around the ground in fakt
12:22 "Actually, what I was worried about was not anything as simple as the structure collapsing - it's been 50 years, it's survived enormous things, it's gonna be fine." 😢
Harsh weather and a lack of good maintenance does horrible things to even strong buildings over time.
It sent chills down my spine when he said that and to think later on, the very structure he was on is what collapsed into the dish.
"Big dish, dangly stuff, domey thing".
Matt Gray 2017.
You've just described my grandpa.
gum ball that'd be the (edit: bald) head, obviously. I'm more concerned about the big dish.
Relating the concepts in a way the average person can understand, the most difficult part of science communication and outreach.
No one knows what an exciter does, but 'the thing that makes the signal before it gets transmitted, everyone can understand that. Does it imply the whole signal train? sure, to people that know RF voodoo. But to the average person on the street it describes exactly what it does.
timecode: 6:46
now:
big fall, damn crash, giant cleanup
December 1, 2020. The Arecibo Observatory has just collapsed. This video may be the very last "Behind the Scenes" tour ever filmed of the observatory. Thank you so much for making this video, from me a Puerto Rican, and from all the science community. You have recorded history!
Sad day indeed.
isn't that why we are all hear?
@@ChefVegan Are you joking? It's in Puerto Rico and can clearly be seen by locals
@@ChefVegan Ah yes, Puerto Rico, famously located "somewhere down in mexico"
@@ChefVegan don't believe everything you hear, do some research.
Extremely glad this video exists after todays news
Me too
@@Trekeyus what happened?
@@john.d.rockefeller2538 Bit late so you might have found out already, but the cabels that held up the telescope were in such bad condition that they had to be repaired but National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns the observatory, said attempting repairs was too dangerous, so they basically just waited until more cables snapped and the dish collapsed
I must admit, I had the 007 theme tune going round my head for the entire walk up the catwalk! --Matt
"For England James?"
I had the 007 theme tune going through my head before reading this without even realizing.
"No. For me."
How long did you actually stand there and listen to the echoes from the dish?
How Could You Not...Just Be Glad Sean Bean Wasn't With You Guys, You Would Have Been In Real Peril!
It's gone. It's all gone now. Many hearts shattered this morning upon the news of this structure's collapse.
It was scheduled for demolition anyway.
The good news is that it didn't fall on any of the buildings or people. It's still a great site for a radio telescope. We should start clamoring for Arecibo 2.0 as soon as the roads are cleared of debris.
@@mal2ksc Doubt that'll ever happen. This one was neglected as is due to lack of funds. Remember this is Puerto Rico.
@@FrozenHaxor if another government/agency can help I think it can be done
Matt's "I may look a tw*t but I no longer have the sun on my face" reminds me of the time I was wearing a camouflage plastic poncho because the weather said it was gonna rain and there were lots of black clouds in the sky.
Some chavvy guy comments "What you wearing that for? You look like a Muppet."
I said "This may be true, but it's going to rain soon, and when it does, I'm going to be a dry Muppet."
He looked down at his not-very-waterproof tracksuit, said "...good answer." then hurried off, presumably home to the dry before it rained.
12:25 "It's survived enormous things, it's gonna be fine"
Aged like a fine wine
Ooof
Yeah. About that...
@@weekiely1233 More like aged like milk than a wine, that’s for sure.
All the tourists who passed through there:
"Bro, imagine it falls"
-"It won't fall off"
* Falls off in 1 December 2020 *
Granted, it only fell off after a bunch of hurricanes damaged it to the point where they were gonna decomission it anyway, due to no longer meeting safety standards.
@@Wylf Are you sure it was the hurricanes that did it in? I read it was the lack of maintenance on the cables and corrosion slowly eat them away to the point of failure
@@CessnaPilot99 Might have been a bit of both. I can't imagine the hurricanes having helped with the structural integrity. But not sure if they were responsible for the damage on the cables - they did damage the dish though, to the point where they decided to decomission the thing due to it being unsafe to repair.
"It survived 50 years, it's gonna be fine" ~ Thomas "Tom" Scott, 2017
RIP big dish :(
"Sorry. We're being children."... Never stop!
Seriously I don't think I'd ever hesitate to do anything that'd interest me no matter how childish the society labeled it to be.
Never thought a Tom Scott video would be hard to watch...
I am glad, given the recent announcement on the damage , decommissioning, and pending controlled demolition, that you guys got to go there when you did. One of the more detailed BTS looks at the telescope. One of the final ones too. :/ Well worth a re-watch.
A week later and this comment hasn't aged well. So much for the "controlled" demolition.
Matt: "Hi, I'm Matt."
Tom: "And I'm Tom."
Matt: "And we're standing in the dish at Arecibo."
Me: "And I jealously hate you both. So much."
You have no idea the jealously people will have now that no one will ever visit that telescope again.
I love how Matt has a blue towel and Tom has a red one😂
You Guys are going to have the best stories for your grandkids, complete with visual aids when you are older.
"C'mon Billy, lemme grab me ol' UA-cam videos and I'll tell you 'bout the time we went up the radio wotsit."
"...oh great, Grandpa's getting his 'computer screen' out again. Bet it isn't even in 4k resolution."
4k? By the time Tom has grandkids, 4k will be at least as archaic as 480p is to us.
(How much more so depends on how much resolutions need to improve; there will come a point at which the human eye just can't resolve any more detail, and whatever that resolution (as in DPI) is, spanning the entire field of view, will be the point at which improving resolution just becomes meaningless. 4k isn't quite there, though I think some of the smaller screens might be hitting the point where they have detail beyond what the eye can see.)
@@rashkavar 4k is already too much detail for the human eye; we don't see in 4k and all the fuss about it is kinda useless, since the detail is lost to us
@@April_a26Correct, we don't see at 4k. We don't see any resolution. But you are wrong about 4k being above human perception
@@April_a26 that depends on screensize and distance. on a phone screen, 4k won't do much. but at the right size and viewing distance, there is no loss in detail. the human eye has no resolution, just as there is no framerate eyes operate on. our brain softcap's the amount of information, but it doesn't work on a frame-by-frame basis, it filters information based on their importance, so you could argue there might be a difference of perceptible framerate between focus and non-focus areas. thus, a higher framerate would always be better.
I had no idea the Arecibo dish was mesh. I always thought, looking at photos which weren't entirely top-down, that it was made of tons of concrete blocks.
@12:23 "... IT'S GONNA BE FINE."
Watching this clip 2 days after it entirely collapsed.
Sadly, it's not going to be fine.
News of people falling off things like that tends to generate rather bad press. Falling off such things when you've been invited to them is exceptionally poor form and rather rude.
Quite.
It just wouldn't be cricket, would it?
The telescope: fine, I'll do it myself
Hard to believe all this is now gone. Find myself looking at the cables.
RIP Arecibo. Came back to watch this video after the collapse. Love the tour
As a Puerto Rican who's visited this place more than 10 times in my life, (because SCIENCE!!) I have to say, thank you for making this video, and I am extremely jealous of the exclusive access you two got...
Matt looks like he wants to be the very best, like no one ever was :P
Just wanted to write this, that Ash Ketchum basecap
RIP Arecibo. Maybe that's why youtube is recommending this again.
brah
Remember to like an subscribe and leave a comment. Its that last one that is probably triggering the algorithm and showing it to even more people.
Those groin height railings are giving me the willies.
+Sandwich247 the railings were higher than they looked: I'm 6ft 4, and the camera was on top of my helmet, which probably makes them look smaller. --Matt
Hence the "go for it, just don't fall off" thing.
They're standard-height rails as specified by the safety folks. Of course, they won't be perfect for everybody, but he didn't in fact fall :).
Haha red towel for Tom and blue one for Matt, perfect! :D
seeing the platform from the inside really shows just how much force that thing must have had when it hit the ground
Rest in Piece.
"Our biggest eye and ear just closed" - Thanks a million to all the staff and researchers at Arecibo
Quite sad it's being de-commissioned. But how awesome that you have these memories of it to remember!
Well... the telescope has been decommissioned itself. Okay forget this joke, the telescope has been collapsed two days ago.
Tom looks so out of place on the beach...
He doesn't like sand. It's coarse, rough and irritating... and it gets everywhere.
wookidoo Repressed memories oh god that is so cringe
Ieuan Hunt To this day he sumarised perfectly why I hate beaches. Haven't got close to sand since then
I would like to know why SETI puts off the image and perception that everyone there is listening for extraterrestrials??? no one there is even remotely interested in the truth of how any of this works...the math data or codes ...no emails back...no replies...TIME is the problem...FRBs? you've got to be kidding...ever time the spaces between FRBs?? 3 minutes maybe....and don't say they don't repeat in the same spot
AND i didn't need millions of dollars to do the work or a telescope....Put me on a team
Tom at 12:26 - "I wasn´t worry that it would collaps, it have stood there for 50 years". Oh, if you only knew.. 😂
Thank you both for taking this opportunity and sharing it when you did. The Arecibo dish may not be with us for much longer, a mere 3 years later.
It's three cables to these enormous concrete towers and they're handling all the weight. 6:08 Good thing you went 3 years ago!
More as 3
Many more than three!
Would like to add that, having been inside the dome as it tracked the sky, that door that they have open around 7:15 is not always flat like that, and it's quite scary when the dome's on one end and the door is right behind you and pointing at the ground.
In hindsight, Tom's fearful brain was kinda right.
I'm really happy you shared this video, It's nice to have a record of Arecibo now that it has sadly collapsed. I really hope they can start fresh and build an even better radio telescope in the future. I have to say though, the comment at 12:26 didn't age very well though 😅
Matt's swag factor is out of control on that beach
i cannot express the excitedness i experienced when i saw both the park bench and the main video set in PR in my sub box. Greetings from Puerto Rico guys!!
Re-watching after the terribly sad news that it will be decommissioned.
I think the wave guide from the transmitters on the ground is above your heads on the walkway. 7 MW for the 430 MHz transmitter.
Funny thing is, those cables just snapped a few weeks ago. Tom was right to be scared
unfortunately on the 19th of November it was announced that the damage is irreparable and the structure is to be demolished. its a shame for such an interesting structure to see its end
And it just collapsed altogether.
@@Syvorji damn I just saw the news, thankfully there doesn't appear to have been any injuries or deaths. I guess the safety fears about the structure were correct
Matt must love having you as a friend Tom.
"It's not falling down, it's hanging there or 50 years."
This feels so strange to hear now. :(
From the moment you mentioned the megawatt amplifiers I started daydreaming about getting a massive big sheet of kevlar and a monster electromagnet in there to create a stupidly big loudspeaker
Rhys Olwyn then you run Godzilla’s roar through the thing.
@@joshuahadams Would be worth further corrupting the last-legs original tape just to get that *sound* . Bounce it off the dish and bloody *terrify* everyone nearby.
Clockwork Kirlia
When they were working on Godzilla (2014) the guys in charge of getting the roar right borrowed touring speakers from The Rolling Stones and set them up behind the Warner Bros. studio to see how the roar carried long distances.
They sent out warnings that they’d be doing something loud, and still got a call from Universal asking what the noise was.
@@joshuahadams Aha, that's how I know about the corruption! I'd love to hear that; next up is a hacked-together Arecibo Loudhailer. Reckon it was probably a Fact Fiend video I learned it from.
Tom: 12:27 "it survived 50 years, its going to be fine"
aged like spoiled milk
I just got to that part of the video. Tom was saying that the telescope would be fine, in that it wasn't going to fall apart with no warning while he's walking on it.....
@@DoctorWhom it was just a cheap dark joke
Great to see such a walk around. It really puts into context how much energy was involved when the sadly expected failure occurred. Its hard to see how that suspended centre structure could weigh 920 tons ......untill you realise how large it is and the fact its a LOT of metal! Nothing about this dish was on a normal scale. Its build, it's power, the data it gathered and eventually its spectacular demise.
watching this now makes me extremely sad knowing what we've lost, but also extremely glad it was around while it lasted. I sincerely hope that once it's deconstructed, they can rebuild it better using modern materials and techniques. That dish still had so much to see.
I know that this is gonna get lost in the comments and the probability of tom reading this is 0.0000000001% but Tom's spanish pronunciation is perfect, flawless even 👌 good job sir. Also i live here in Puerto Rico.
Just came back to this video after hearing about the telescope’s accident
Arecibo has had two cable breakages, and is in grave danger of collapsing, as of NOV 2020
As of DEC 2020 it has collapsed.
"Hi I'm Matt and I'm Tom and this is the park beach." ....had me in tears! x,D
Tom, have you ever considered posting, less polished extended cuts of these tours, with more of the info from the experts on a different channel in addition to the main video? It seems a shame that so much of the cool stuff you learn gets cut out and never seen.
Wait!!!! Was that a cable I heard snap!!! YYYEEEEESHHHH!!!! What a glorious year, 2020!!!! Well, Tom, I think your fears at 15:00 were not as irrational as they might have seemed. I'm just glad it didn't happen wile ANYONE was on it.
AAARGH! you lucky bastards! I crunched their data for years, would have killed for a chance to go up there....
Not much chance of that now.
@@raithnarok7318 😭😭😭
People think/hope it will be rebuilt...., very unlikely unfortunately. When arecibo was built, Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) wasn't a viable solution. Today though, small dish arrays have so many advantages, nobody gonna spend money on a new single dish system
@@LateNightHacks There is nothing else which can send Megawatt radar pulses into space to track and image asteroids, moons and planets in detail. Now it has been allowed to self-destruct, by bean-counters who had no appreciation of the unique and valuable scientific asset which is now a tangled mess at the bottom of a hollow in the ground. Those in charge of funding should be ashamed of their actions.
Thank you for this video, this is a great memory to keep seeing she's gone.
Let them know that their deathly hallows at 14:23 looks a bit broken :)
Not as much as it is now
Am I the only one who had no clue what Tom said at 15:18
Peathbydeas "For England Matt"
Thanks, it seems really obvious now!
I don't get it
It's a line from James Bond
Oh, I did understand the words, but I thought it was just an English pride thing ^^ I feel a little more enlightened now :)
Fantastic. Many thanks for filming and posting. Loved it. May never get there. But this Ham radio op loved it.
Tom: "it's been here for 50 years it's gonna be fine"
2020: "hold my rona"
this is a great video but i cant help but focusing on this: your towels matching your colours makes me very happy.
Watching this now, I'm so jealous of you two for getting to go through there, but also really glad you did this behind-the-scenes peak at the facility. Here's hoping there's an Arecibo 2.0 that you guys can visit.
so the H&S at arecibo consists of telling people not to fall off
No, but it's fun to tell people "don't fall off".
Afetr the warning proceeded to watch on the oculus rift.
10/10 recommend
This was so cool!! Thanks for shooting all this footage of it for us to enjoy! :D
And now, just 3,5 years later, it collapsed. :-(
I'm getting anxious just looking at the heights you're dealing with. Thanks for going places some of us wouldn't be able to go otherwise. :D
As a massive science geek I have always striven to experience everything that are available to me through modern means, that means I'm a PADI certified deep rescue diver and have experience with high-altitude military parachuting. That said and whille I'm sure the camera doesn't do it justice I could just sit here mouth agape and watch in awe. You never fail to produce fantastic stuff, keep up the good work!
On a side note is it wrong that all I could think at 11:05 was "wow, base-jump!"
When he says this thing's been here for 50 years--it's not gonna collapse! And here we are in 2020.
Tom Scott has a video on his channel titled "Why You Can't Trust Me", but don't trust me on it. Look it up yourself ;)
“For England, Tom?”
“No…for me.”
Matt looks like the epitome of a 90s kid right now. Could be an extra on Saved by the Bell... Amazing!
So glad you were able to do this before the 'scope tragically failed and collapsed! So sad to hear of the antenna's demise!
i too have a fear of heights, and you were very brave to do this! i guess to become a member of the crew, that would be a requirement? YOU BET!
Congrats and thanks for bringing this to us. Braver than I. Glad you got chance to share this now it gone.
Watching this in memory of the Arecibo telescope.
rest in peace Arecibo Observatory
Only Tom would go to the beach in black jeans ;) must be toasty!
As a resident of Puerto Rico who does this on a yearly basis, I've come to say no. There are dozens of us!
But it's his journalist's uniform. After so long with the iconic red shirt, ha has to wear the whole outfit at all times when on camera. It's the Tom Scott Ⓒ ™ ® brand now. :P
That beach was my favorite beach in Puerto Rico when I used to live there.I went that beach nearly every weekend.
I miss living in PR so very much. I was stationed at USCG Air Station Borinquen in Aguadilla which is totally on the other side of the island. This was so cool to watch -- I went there but never got anywhere near what they saw. (However, I was able to get a very extensive tour inside a nuclear power plant, guided by my husband who is an operator there. I was pleasantly geeked out.) Thanks Tom and crew for this. Plus strength and love to the lovely people and land of Borinquen (PR).
You left England in May to go spend time on the beach in Puerto Rico. The sacrifices you're willing to make!
Why is this recommended now.. youtube knows how to play with people's feelings
Beautiful place; the structure and the surroundings and the view. Absolutely amazing. You guys are very lucky to be invited there! (Not just luck of course)
This should have been the main video.
I have to admit that lately, the "behind the scenes" videos, have been fantastic, while the regular videos, while "nice, just don't seem to hold up in comparison. (I have to thank them for the shaky cam warning - I am1 day post-migraine, and bad things could have happened if not for that warning!)
Wow, I always thought the whole dish was made of concrete :D
oggi mog Same here. When they started talking about "under the dish" I was expecting a room. Wait! What?
Battlefield 3 does that to you
Hey thank you you for the vertigo warning. I let the video go anyway. It looked incredible, but I can guarantee it would have got me. Looking forward to the next one. Thanks again guys. Can't wait for the next Tech Diff.
It's too bad...A couple of hours ago, the last cable (on 1 tower) broke & the whole thing collapsed! This is no more & now the cleanup begins! Hopefully they are willing & able to build another, but from what I understand...That won't happen! The end of 57 years of discoveries & a better understanding of the universe around us!
China has built a bigger one, scientists can do research there.
@@antoniorsoftware The 1 in China is way bigger, but doesn't currently have the same capabilities as Arecibo. The Arecibo radio telescope could receive radio ways, but also transmit radio waves. The Chinese radio telescope can only receive radio waves...So it's very limited on it's capabilities! It can't perform the same tasks as Arecibo...If they did want to set it for transmission, it would need a major refitting! The platform is totally different, as the Arecibo is 900 tons & the Chinese is only 30 tons!
Giving your video some love to kind of remember my favorite radio telescope
RIP Arecibo, may you be built again.
i have come here to cry about the damage and the probable demolition of arecibo
Just learned this will likely be demolished. That's how I found this video. Thanks for making it so I can learn about this thing.
Turns out it collapsed by itself before they could demolish it.
12:21 really didn't age well.
6:31 I love this shot ! It's so huge !
Who's here, watching this after they heard it collapsed ?
I feel sad :'(
It (was) such a unique instrument.
I hope that people come together and decide to rebuild it...
If the government would stop wasting all our money, we might.
I had already scheduled vacation and was Searching for a flight this past June 2020 to go there when Covid finally squashed the whole plan. Certainly the regular tourist visit would have paled to what you experienced, I'm so envious of your trip. Even more heartbroken that it's gone and no longer able to continue its amazing discoveries. Sure wish I had not put off that trip as long as I did.
Is '50 shades of Matt Gray' back? 😂
I could watch you guys messing with the echo for ages, I think it's the lag between you talking and the echo that makes it so funny
A very nice hi def video of this colossal engineering marvel and a very sad 1st of December 2020 day. Thank you so much for this video!!!
I am sure all those studying electromagnetics and radio did find this video very interesting, it was great when matt could point out the technical terms associated with it
Rest in peace my sweet prince
The engineering of just building this thing is insane. Shame it's gone now.
Thank you for sharing these behind the scene B-roll you took, this is awesome! Hopefully they get it fixed and back up and running soon. Seems like a long wavelength telescope should still be able to do some science with part of the dish grid gone though?
Matt is wearing Salomon X Ultra Mids, those are fantastic boots.
Very nicely done lads!
Great video, all the more important given that this amazing structure is no more. Very sad.
14:30 The steel mesh would've worked like a morbid fry cutter.