Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Observatory Director Francisco Córdova on the Devastating Loss of Arecibo

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

The 900-ton instrument platform suspended high above the giant Arecibo dish crashed downward in the early morning hours of December 1st. Host Mat Kaplan had recorded a conversation with the leader of the observatory just hours before the disaster. You’ll hear it here, along with a reflection on the magnificent radio telescope by Bill Nye, and further comments by Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts. We’ve also got space headlines and a brand-new prize for a brand-new space trivia contest. Learn more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/1202-2020-francisco-cordova-loss-arecibo-observatorySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A tragedy for science at Arecibo. We'll talk with the Observatory Director this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. You've probably heard the news. The great radio telescope at Arecibo in Puerto Rico is no more. The 900-ton instrument platform, suspended by cables high above the giant dish, fell to its ruin in the early morning on December 1st.

No one was injured, but any hope of salvaging the invaluable equipment has probably been lost. It was just hours before that I had recorded a conversation with Francisco Cordova, director of the observatory. That was after two cables had already failed, and after the National Science Foundation, which owns the facility, decided it must be decommissioned. You'll hear that there was still some hope when I spoke to Francisco, and hope is still alive. decommissioned. You'll hear that there was still some hope when I spoke to Francisco,

and hope is still alive. You'll also hear about the spectacular legacy of this unique instrument that has revealed so much and has played a role in the research conducted by so many astronomers and others. Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye will open our special coverage with his own reflection on Arecibo. First, though, we must take a minute to congratulate China. Its Chang'e-5 lander successfully touched down on the moon just hours before the loss of Arecibo. By the time you hear this, the spacecraft may already be collecting the two kilograms of sample material it will return to Earth. It's a complex mission, and some of the most difficult steps remain, but so far, so good. There's more space news in the most recent edition of our weekly newsletter, The Downlink. You can even hear the soothing sounds of interplanetary space. Okay, there's no sound in the void, but one of the microphones on the Perseverance Mars rover was activated en route and picked up some of the spacecraft's own appropriately eerie hum.

You'll find it and much more at planetary.org slash downlink. Bill, thank you for joining me on very short notice on what is really a pretty tragic day for astronomy, for science. We've lost a major tool for learning about the universe. Yeah, and it's a piece of history, too. So everybody, the Arecibo Observatory's central receiver, I guess, was suspended by cables, all tension members for you structural engineering buffs. And they failed catastrophically. The thing fell down onto the dish. I'm heartbroken.

The place was amazing in a couple ways. First of all, visually, or as a place to visit, that anybody thought this would work and could build such an enormous instrument. I mean, the wave guides, Matt, these are these amazingly smooth, perfectly machined tubes, metal tubes that microwaves, radar waves go down. You know, they don't go through wires like conductors. This is electromagnetic radiation bouncing off the inside of these perfectly made tubes. Those alone are dramatic. And then the size of the dish is just dramatic.

And the historical idea, like it's in the movie Contact. It's in Goldeneye. It's just an amazing thing. But then the discoveries that were made with it about asteroids whose names and letters you would probably recognize if you're really into asteroids. So my heart goes out to everybody. And furthermore, the economy of Puerto Rico is infected by this. It's frustrating. It's all ruined. So Matt, I'm so old.

How old are you? I'm so old that Dale Corson signed my diploma, engineering school at Cornell. Dale Corson signed my diploma, engineering school at Cornell. And he was one of the leading guys that developed the idea of Arecibo. And people, if you never went there, I'm sure it will become an historic site. My goodness, man, they took a valley, an enormous valley made of limestone, carved it out smoothly, mounted this giant dish thing in there, and hung a receiver over the whole thing on these massive cables. And you say, well, where'd they get the concrete to build the massive towers to hold up the massive cables? They made it out of the limestone that

they ground up to shape the valley. Oh my goodness, it was visionary. And I think maybe part of the problem, the heartbreak is it was a cold war thing. I mean, part of the, part of its mission, I'm pretty sure was to listen for electromagnetic pulses, big, strong radio waves from nuclear explosions on the other side of the world in the Soviet union at that time. And so I won't say it was built in temporary fashion, but it was, let's get it done ad hoc. And then after 50 years and a bunch of hurricanes, the thing got fatigued. And everybody fatigue is when the load reverses, while the cable's going up and down. And so I got to wonder, Matt, were the extra hurricanes that move slowly across the island, the extra hurricanes induced by climate change, did they lead also to the collapse of

this thing? They couldn't have helped. Yeah. And so that aside, the idea is that with something this large, you could bounce radar waves off of asteroids and characterize them, get some information about how they spin, whether they're ice or rocks, whether they're a rubble pile or a solid object. And so this is quite a loss. I don't really have a vision about how it's going to be replaced with all the fiscal constraints and the pandemic. Matt, I just don't know. The biggest radio telescope complementary to Arecibo is in China. If you're a Cold War international competition kind of thinker, that's something to consider. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you for asking, Matt. Yeah, thank you, Bill, again, on short notice for joining this. What short notice? This is a day in history. Come on. It is, yeah. Planetary Society CEO, Bill Nye. My uninterrupted,

in-depth conversation with Arecibo Director Francisco Cordova is just ahead. Hi, this is Jennifer Vaughn, the Planetary Society's Chief Operating Officer. 2020 has been a year like no other. It challenged us, changed us, and helped us grow. Now we look forward to a 2021 with many reasons for hope. Help us create a great start for this promising new year at planetary.org slash planetary fund. When you invest in the Planetary Fund, your year-end gift will be matched up to $100,000

thanks to a generous member. Your support will enable us to explore worlds, defend Earth, and find life elsewhere across the cosmos. Please learn more and then donate today at planetary.org slash planetary fund. Thank you. Visiting Arecibo has always, always been one of my goals. There's no telling now when that will be possible. It was midday on November 30th when the observatory's director and I talked.

The news was bad enough after the August 10th failure of one long cable followed on November 6th when an even more important one broke. Little did we know that the worst was still to come. I hope you'll agree that my conversation with civil engineer and Puerto Rican native son Francisco Cordova holds up very well, especially those portions of it that review the enormous contributions made by the Great Dish and why it is worth rebuilding or replacing. Francisco spent a number of years at Boeing as a senior manager before taking over the observatory. I should explain a couple of things he'll mention. Arecibo was one of very few facilities that was capable of using its enormous transmitting power to heat the ionosphere. This enabled research that has helped us understand the behavior of plasma in that upper layer of our atmosphere.

You'll also hear him refer to the Gregorian upgrade of the facility. James Gregory was a Scottish contemporary of Isaac Newton, who designed a type of reflecting telescope. That design, now called Gregorian in his honor, was the basis of a substantial upgrade to Arecibo in the mid-1990s. Francisco Cordova, thank you so much for joining us on Planetary Radio. I only wish that the circumstances and our topic was a happier one, but we are very happy to have you join us to talk about what has happened, about the legacy of this magnificent instrument, and what you hope will be happening as we head into the coming years. Again, thank you. No, absolutely. And again, thank you for the invitation and happy to share some of the experiences that we've had here recently or before that.

I think there's certainly a lot to talk about. So, again, we really appreciate the invitation. Oh, you bet. You know, our boss at the Planetary Society, CEO Bill Nye, He talks with pride about the role of his alma mater, Cornell University, in the creation of the observatory. He and all of us at the Society want to express our condolences to you, your staff, and all the researchers who depended on this great tool. It is at least so good to know that no one has been hurt through all of this.

That must be a relief to you as well. Absolutely. And so the safety of our staff is definitely our priority. It has always been our priority and will continue to be. From that perspective, you know, we do feel a sense of relief and the fact that most of these issues that we've had with cable failures and such haven't really resulted in anybody getting hurt. And again, that's our priority. Yeah, thank goodness. Were you at the facility when either of these breaks happened?

No, no, I was not. And actually, very, very few folks have been here. Both of these breaks have happened fairly late, either in the middle of the night or in the late evening. At the observatory, we have about 130 staff members here. Certainly, you know, this year has been a special one with all the COVID issues and constraints. And so, you know, we probably have about half the staff working remotely these days. That being said, we do have sort of a skeleton crew here during the night that includes a telescope operator and our safety personnel. There are certain scientists that do

stay also overnight to support a particular type of observation if needed. But typically, during those times, we'll only have maybe, you know, five to eight staff members on site. And so I was not here for either of those failures. Certainly, I was called pretty early in the morning after the first one happened. Were any of those staff on duty? Were any of them out there at the focus of the great dish in that amazing structure? No. This is such a massive structure. And so, you know, we can talk numbers to get an idea. You know, it's 1.8 million pounds in the platform, the suspended structure, and it's 305 meters in diameter. You talk those numbers and they sound big, but you can't really, you know,

absorb it until you've seen it and how big it really is. From an operations perspective, we run operations out of the control room, which is away from the primary reflector area. And then the security personnel also is away from that area. Actually, we do searches around the dish to make sure that there's nobody in that area before we do any high power transmission or any sort of thing like that. But no, we didn't have anybody in the area. We did have operators on site and we did have our security staff, but we didn't have anybody else in that general vicinity, which was good news. Probably a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. Just minutes ago, I was interviewing Michael Hecht.

I think you know each other, of MIT's Haystack Observatory. Absolutely. It's a conversation that will be on an upcoming episode of our show. He shared his shock and sadness about Arecibo. He asked me to extend his condolences as well. But he also told me about the collaborative work that was underway and really what sound like heroic efforts by members of your staff to save some data. My guess is that this was probably not the only example of heroic action that has happened since

that first break on August 10th. Oh, absolutely. So I think everybody knows the observatory, right? I think, you know, it's a historic facility. It's an icon of science for the entire world. But the true value of the facility is in the staff. I've never worked with a more dedicated group of folks. They are fantastic. I am extremely proud of everything that they have been able to accomplish, especially in this last couple of years with so many challenges that we've had. First, Hurricane Maria in 2017. Then we had other smaller hurricanes.

Before then, we were going through an environmental impact statement evaluation by NSF that they were actually considering decommissioning the facility. We managed to pull through that. Then we got into a rash of earthquakes earlier this year, followed by a pandemic. And so it seems like just a never-ending rash of issues for the facility, unfortunately. And we've managed to get through the majority of them until we had these cable failures that were just so unexpected that unfortunately couldn't be controlled. I did a fair amount of reading in preparation for this, and I saw that really a tremendous amount of progress had been made toward understanding the first failure and recovering from it. You already had new cables on order. This must have made the second failure just that much more devastating. Oh, absolutely. And so I guess the real frustration is, you know, we felt that the engineering teams felt they had bounded the problem to these auxiliary cables, right? So the first cable that failed was an auxiliary cable.

That auxiliary cable was the newest cable that we have on the facility. We installed it in the 1990s as part of the Gregorian update of the facility. And the failure mode for that particular cable was very surprising. It didn't fail in tension. It sort of pulled through the socket. We spent a lot of time first understanding that particular failure, making sure that we understood enough about the structure to feel safe working in and around those areas. A comprehensive structural model of the facility was built to try to understand the structural capacity of its

elements. And then just as we had a plan developed and vetted, right, remember everything needs to be evaluated by the National Science Foundation. It is approved by them. They have a set of consultants that reviews everything. And so there is a little bit of time in that churn. You know, we had placed order for cables we had scheduled contractors to fly in to install some of these temporary clamps that would that would actually allow us to do a little bit more work in the tower areas and we had constrained the problem to these to these auxiliary cables you know at that point i think you know everybody felt that there was a a handle more or less on the situation because it was, we're beginning to understand it.

Then, unfortunately, we have this other failure, which, you know, was completely unexpected. The second failure was the failure of a main cable. These main cables were the original cables that were installed in the 60s by the Department of Defense when they built the facility originally. And this particular failure is a failure in intention, okay? So it's a failure because there is degraded capacity in that particular element. That opens up a bunch of other concerns and issues where we start thinking, well, you know, why did that particular one fail? You know, do we have other cables that exhibit the same type of behavior? I've seen also damage on two other main cables in that same tower, which really lead us to believe that there is significant degradation that's occurred on that particular structural system,

that's occurred on that particular structural system, which further complicates her ability to really be able to salvage the facility with zero risk. And so I think it's important to mention that. A lot of people have asked me, you know, why didn't we change this sooner or we have responded differently? Well, you know, there is a level of first you have to understand the problem. And the mandate had always been clear of we have to have no risk to personnel performing the tasks in these areas. And in order to do that, in order to quantifiably measure safety, then we needed to take it step by step. And we needed to understand the capacities. And then we needed to understand the failure modes and determine those. And doing a lot of those things without being able to touch the hardware is very complicated. Finally, when we were ready to execute a plan and we had the

second failure, we just set us back. Wow. There have also always been budget challenges, haven't there? Maybe not always, but in recent years. I mean, I came across an article by my former colleague, Emily Lakdawalla, from 2007, which he simply titled Save Arecibo, which of course happened. But I mean, it has been a struggle to keep this great dish in operation, hasn't it? It has been. And I think for over a decade, definitely, there has been challenges and there's been the consideration of budget cuts and trying to find creative ways to support operations in the facility. I joined the team in 2016. And the challenge that we were going at that point was the divestment process that NSF was having or was undergoing with a lot of their astronomy facilities.

That was our first challenge. How do we turn this around? And what can we do to turn it around to a point that we can showcase the value of the facility worldwide if we weren't doing it well enough? And so I think we were actually able to do that. And we were able to develop a plan and implement a plan that successfully increased scientific productivity of the facility, that brought external funding into the facility. And we were very proud of our accomplishments, especially over the last two years as the University of Central Florida took over the management of the facility. But yes, you're correct.

I mean, there has been challenging budget cuts, you know, in our particular contract has a year after year budget cut. The one thing we haven't really gotten that, that cut, because, you know, Congress has has really mandated National Science Foundation to maintain the research facilities that are flat funding. So we've benefited from that flat funding for the last couple of years. But the challenges for our SIBO has been there for a while. And so our focus has been on how do we showcase the capability? How do we make that capability even better than we had it before? And how can we find a way to increase scientific productivity in-house and externally through our users to build new collaborations, to bring more equipment?

And so in the last two years, when you look at what we've accomplished, we have over $60 million worth of funding and new grants. We have three different pieces of equipment that are under fabrication. We were on the path of success. And so unfortunately, we run into this bigger roadblock, which we're still trying to get over. I had read about some of these great fundraising successes that you've enjoyed just in the few years you've been there. And I will add, as the youngest person ever to head an NSF facility like Arecibo, there are so many more radio telescopes now than when Arecibo saw first light back in 1963. Why has it remained such an important instrument? In radio astronomy, size matters.

the size of our sebo just makes it that sensitive at our given frequencies right than than any other telescope out there you know there continues to be cutting edge science that that that gets done here every day and nothing has been able to replace that while we do have other phased array telescopes that perhaps are more modern and do fantastic science. They have fantastic capabilities. We can't deny that. When you're looking at the sensitivity, that's where Arecibo shines. That's number one. And number two, I think the fact that Arecibo is a multidisciplinary facility is one of those things that really makes it unique. You know, we have astronomy, we have space and atmospheric sciences, and we also have planetary sciences. It is very unique in the sense that we have all three of

those communities here working with the same instrument, but utilizing completely different capabilities of that particular instrument. The astronomy team focuses certainly on the sensitivity on the large collecting area. The planetary team focuses on the power of the planetary radar, which is the most powerful planetary radar in the world. There's not another one like it. The space and atmospheric sciences team has the most sensitive incoherent scatter radar in the world, as well as a suite of other equipment, including LIDAR suite of other equipment, including LIDARs, including optics, including remote observing facilities, ionospheric heating capability.

I mean, there's just so much going on at our CBO at any given time. And actually, that was one of our big operational challenges. One of our big challenges was, you know, we have different communities. We have different capabilities. How do we find a way to create schedules, right, that we can fit everybody in and be successful? And so those are, I think, the big things about our seaboard that has made it be a significant instrument for so long. And that's why so many of us still are in shock with it not being here anymore. Because we know that even today there isn't another facility like this one in the world.

You can talk about other telescopes, face-to-ray telescopes. You can talk about the Chinese FAST telescope, which is actually larger than our SIBO. But they don't have the same capabilities. You know, the FAST doesn't have any radars or any transmitters. They're not built to have that. They don't have an ionospheric heating capability. They have very limited frequency ranges. And so the uniqueness of Arecibo's and the value of a facility like this one still continues to this day. I'm so glad that you mentioned the radar capability because our audience knows it very well

since we frequently talked about how it has been used to reveal more about near-Earth objects, near-Earth asteroids, and saving our planet perhaps someday as well as doing great science. In fact, it was mentioned not long ago on the show about until we can look at, I think it was Apophis we were talking about, that big rock that's going to pass by in 2029. How much people were looking forward to using your facility to tell us more about that big rock. That is a big part of what has happened down there hasn't it oh absolutely even last year we broke our the record on the most near-earth objects that we had uh actually pinged with our radar you know it's one of our key capabilities there are other facilities that have other planetary radars but they're not as sensitive as our cebos so you're not going to get such a great resolution on your images and there are other objects that are just too far away for other radars to reach that were within our reach. And certainly that has been, I think, a key mission for us here at Arecibo is supporting the characterization of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.

of potentially hazardous near-earth objects. Someone has created a Twitter account, Save the Arecibo Observatory, our at Save the AO. We'll repeat that again later. And it includes this charming little video that goes through some of the accomplishments of Arecibo. And they're read, it seems, at least if I heard it correctly, by children. Really, you probably have at least if I heard it correctly, by children. You probably have seen it, I assume. I mention this only because I'm wondering if you could single out, and it's not fair because, of course, there have been hundreds. Are there a few of specific discoveries made by the observatory over the last 57 years that you could maybe mention?

Absolutely. There's so many. It's always a challenge when I'm asked this question. Of course. And the reason why I say it's challenging is, as I mentioned, we have three different communities. And every one of them have fantastic highlights. They've accomplished so many great scientific endeavors that it's always hard to pick. One of the first ones,

the determination that the rotation rate of mercury, that's always a to pick. One of the first ones, the determining the rotation rate of Mercury, that's always a big one that we have out there. Being able to detect the first repeating fast radio burst is another one, way more recent than that one. You know, seeing the first triple asteroid system. I mean, there's, again, every one of these has so many accomplishments. And I always struggle even to showcase it when we're at conferences, I always get that question. I have a slide, I always have a slide built that lists all of them, but there's so many that you can't really, this slide isn't big enough for all the stuff that I've got in there. But no, it's, you know, it's always amazing to read to read through the history of Arecibo

and to realize all that has been accomplished and all that is left to be accomplished. Right. And, and so that's something that I always like to talk about and say, you know, we've done great things. There's so much more that we could potentially do. There is such a big need for a facility like Arecibo as we go into the future, that I think we have to find a way to maintain some of those capabilities. And if we're not going to be able to maintain them in this current setup, then should we think about how to reimagine the observatory for its second generation? Yeah. I also think of the personal impact for so many people, and I've talked to many of them, who have done work at Arecibo, either were on site or benefited from the data gathered there. One of my colleagues met the planetary scientist who would become his wife while both of them were

working at your facility. It has played such a huge role in the lives of so many scientists and young people, particularly, I think, there in Puerto Rico. You must be hearing these stories as well. Absolutely. You know, when you talk about the impact in Puerto Rico, this is one of these sites that you actually always visit when you're in school, right? And so when you have a school trip, the observatory is kind of one of those places that you're going to go on a school trip on one of those. And actually, I came to Arecibo on a school trip, the observatory is kind of one of those places that you're going to go on a school trip on one of those. And actually, I came to Arecibo on a school trip when I was in middle school. And I remember being impressed, right, and inspired by the structure. And I think that

happens to a lot of local kids here in Puerto Rico. You know, we receive over 25,000, you know, in Puerto Rico, you know, we receive over 25,000, you know, school children on any given year that, you know, have the opportunity to see this magnificent instrument and become inspired by it. And so losing that is also going to be significant. You know, our Science and Visitor Center, we have one of the most complete Science and Visitor Centers of any National Science Foundation large facility. You know, we have typically over 80,000 visitors at the visitor center, but we also have a range of formal and informal education programs ranging from elementary school, middle school, high school, and also undergraduate and graduate programs. And so I think those are also, you know, programs. And so I think those are also, you know, very important to highlight. They are key to maintaining our pipeline of talented scientists, not only for RSC though, but for the entire world.

No matter what happens with the dish, the big dish, are there parts of the facility, you mentioned the visitor center, that will remain open and maybe continue to do research. This announced the commissioning, I think it's still being planned by the National Science Foundation. And certainly we're, you know, as the managing team here, we're also talking very closely with them on what those plans are. But the idea is really just to decommission the 305 meter telescope, right? So the plan is to maintain the remainder of the site. This is an 118 acre site, so it's fairly large. So we have over 30 buildings at this facility, all of which we want to maintain. You know, we do want to maintain the Science and Visitor Center.

I think there's a lot of other ancillary equipment like our LIDARs, like our photometers, like our airglows. All of those equipments are still functional and will continue to operate. We have a remote observing facility in the island of Culebra. There is still quite a bit of science to be done with those instruments. We have a 12-meter dish that we called it the little dish. We can also do certain types of observations with that particular telescope. So there is quite a bit of activity going on right now to realign our priorities to these other instruments as we develop, I think, a comprehensive plan for, hey, what would it look like, right,

if we were to think on building something new? And what would that be? And what capabilities would we like it to be? And, you know, would it be even possible? We still don't know. We'd certainly like to think so. come up with some concepts of what's in the art of the possible for the future there. But the science doesn't stop. And our idea as well is to be able to reopen the Science and Visitor Center down the line to be able to maintain some of these educational public outreach programs that are so important to Puerto Rico. I sure hope that can happen. I'm also thinking of the University of Central Florida, which operates and manages the telescope on behalf of the National Science Foundation. I saw this quote from the UCF president, Alexander Cartwright. He said, we remain committed to the scientific mission in Arecibo and to the local community, which I hope gives you some reassurance that you have this partner still working on your behalf? Absolutely, absolutely.

So UCF, I am a direct employee for the University of Central Florida, and the university has been amazing. The support that we've gotten for the university has been great, and we are fully committed to continue doing great science here at RCBO and helping in any way that we can. I agree that incorporating also other elements and potential education elements from UCF is also something that we have in mind as well. I just have one more maybe unfair question for you. What would you like to see happen?

That's an interesting one. You know, many people ask me that, but not in that same way. Yeah, many people ask me that, but not in that same way. It's hard to understand. Certainly, preserving the facility is something we would love to see, right? You always like to see finding a way to save it. But, you know, being here on the ground, I also understand the safety challenges that come with that. It's a difficult decision on whether there is a willingness to take the risks necessary to stabilize it. But at the end of the day, the way I see it is either we find a way to stabilize it and save it, or we find a way to rebuild it. Because the need is still there. The need for a

facility of this size, of this sensitivity, with these or better capabilities is still needed. That's what I would say is what I'd like to see. If we could save it, that would be great. I understand the challenges with that. So if we can't save it, let's build another one. Hear, hear. Thank you, Francisco. I wish you the greatest of success.

And I'm sure I do that on behalf of our audience and the members of the Planetary Society as well. And I look forward to getting better news. But we are very, very grateful for you taking this time to go over what still must be a pretty painful topic. And best of luck as things move forward. Absolutely. Thank you, Matt, for the opportunity. And I will just mention again, there is that Twitter account, Save the Arecibo Observatory or at Save the AO.

I've also, oh, and there is a petition campaign there as well. And I've seen the hashtag, Save the Arecibo Observatory and hashtag what Arecibo means to me. And there are plenty of people who should be able to respond to that. Francisco, I'm going to keep it on my bucket list as well, because it has always been near the top of that list for me to make it to that beautiful spot and see this facility. So I hope to talk to you in person someday.

Oh, that would be fantastic. Arecibo Observatory Director Francisco Cordova. This week's What's Up gives Bruce Betts the opportunity to add his thoughts about the loss of the observatory. You'll hear him in moments. Season's greetings. Bill Nye here. The holidays are racing toward us. We've got the perfect present for the space enthusiast in your life. A gift membership to the Planetary Society will make her or him part of everything we do, like flying our own light sail spacecraft, two of them,

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membership and how easy it is to give someone special the passion, beauty, and joy of space. That's planetary.org slash gift. Thank you and happy holidays. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. It's only proper because we talk a fair amount about Arecibo and its role in planetary defense and learning about rocks out there. I wanted to give you a chance to comment on this loss of the Great Dish as well. Well, it's obviously very sad for the science community, all the great science they've done over many decades, studying all sorts of aspects of the universe, of course, in planetary defense that's near and dear to my heart. They were one of only two planetary radars that were able to

radars that were able to radar image and study the properties of near-Earth asteroids. And so the loss of Arecibo is kind of a big deal, particularly because now we have Goldstone, which is great, but Goldstone is one facility, and so you're lacking redundancy as well as the capability of Arecibo to reach farther out in distance to observe asteroids. Even coming up this spring, there are observations of Apophis that were planned, Apophis the asteroid that'll fly by very close to the Earth in 2029. And the radio scientists at an Apophis workshop I went to recently were hoping that Arecibo would be back online, but now obviously we'll just be using Goldstone, which will get data. It just won't be quite the same. And I mentioned while I was talking to Francisco Cordova that we had

talked about how there was hope to use Arecibo in the study of Apophis. That actually wasn't in a recent show. It was in a webinar that we did a while back about planetary defense. I'm not surprised to hear that you're also saddened by this. I suppose we'll just keep monitoring the situation, as I told Francisco, and keep looking up. And so you can help us with that. What's up there? I can. There's a lot of great stuff coming up in the next few weeks. In the evening sky, you have Jupiter, bright Jupiter, yellowish Saturn are getting closer and closer in the sky, and they will be closer than they've been in 400 years on the 21st of December. That's in the evening southwest. Before then, we've got the annual Geminid meteor showers,

traditionally the best shower of the year with 100 plus meteors per hour from a dark site. And there actually will be very little moon. It'll be almost a new moon, so it'll be a great time to observe that. That's peaking on December 13th, 14th, and will also occur a few days before and after. If that wasn't enough, there's a total solar eclipse on December 14th that will be visible from portions of Chile and Argentina, and a partial eclipse visible for much of South America. You can see planetary.org slash eclipse for more information on that. And then in the morning sky, if you're still awake because you're so excited,

Venus is still looking super bright over in the east. You weren't kidding. Lots of great stuff to see. I take it that that partial eclipse won't reach as far as those of us, even in the southern portion of North America. No. No, you're going to have to road trip and it's not really the ideal time for travel. Now, I was thinking though about making that trip out to the desert. Antebrego is not

too far from me on the 9th of the 13th. That might be worth it. See some of those rocks. Should be well worth it. Should be really good, especially with the new moon. All right, on to this week in space history. 1972, the last human mission to the moon launched, Apollo 17. 1998, Unity and Zarya modules were joined together, forming the core of what would become the International Space Station. Yay. On to random space facts. Showing your age there, old-timer.

Oh, yeah, sure i am the arecibo radio dish covers covered i guess it still covers about the same area as the white house and its grounds oh interesting i don't know but it is random they're about same area of the dish and the White House plus the fenced-in area around it. Yeah, I think that's very interesting. That's a good analogy. Gooden. Gooden. Gooden.

Big is the answer. We move on to the trivia contest. Mars Odyssey, longest continuously active orbiter around another world. I asked you what spacecraft is the second longest continuously active orbiter around another world. How did we do, Matt? That was a moderate response. And a number of people who made good guesses but wrong guesses. And I'm going to read one of these to you, one of these incorrect ones, because it has special qualifications.

It's from Heather Vecchione, Colorado. She thought it was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Not true, close, but not true. But Heather has an admirable bias. She says, I work on both the Mars Odyssey and MRO programs as a quality assurance engineer in mission operations at Lockheed Martin. It's truly a dream job, and I love learning something about Mars every day. Congratulations, Heather, and thanks for your service. It's great, and MRO has been working for a really long time as well, since 2005. But there's more. And here is more from our poet laureate, Dave Fairchild, in Kansas.

It's okay to be the second longest up in space because we send them up to find the info, not to race. So Mars Express has been at Mars since June 2003. Like Matt and Bruce, it's quite a pair with good old Odyssey. And we've been doing this longer than Mars Express has been in orbit. Yeah, that's right. And not quite as long as Odyssey, though. Here is our winner. Mark Dunning in Florida is our winner.

He says, Mars Express still kicking since 2003. Tears for the Beagle Lander, which was released by Mars Express, made it to the surface of Mars, but not in one piece. Space is hard and Mars is very unforgiving. He says, you guys help more than I can say. Thankful for Plan Rad. Well, thank you, Mark, and congratulations. You have won yourself that Spacefarers Handbook by Birgitta and Urs Gantz out of Europe. It's great. I got the PDF version. It's terrific. And you can get the e-book or the physical one. We'll be sure to ask you which one you would prefer. I got some other stuff.

Big surprise, right? Yeah. Cody Roxwald in Florida. Mars Express takes the almost appropriate red ribbon. It is very appropriate, I think. Really, they're all winners, and so are we. Michael Unger, it arrived on Christmas Day, just like the Polar Express. I bet you hadn't thought of that one.

I hadn't. No, no, I hadn't. Torsten Zimmer in Germany talking about the longevity of this spacecraft. And that's why people buy European cars. Just saying. That's it. I'm done with these. What else you got?

What do you got for next time? It's bittersweet, but I think it's an impressive thing. How many aluminum panels are in the Arecibo radio dish, the main dish reflector part? How many aluminum panels was it made of? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. Well, that's very appropriate. We are going to make it worth your while to do the research. Here is a brand new, never before offered prize on Planetary Radio because it's a brand new product from Chop Shop.

That's chopshopstore.com, where the Planetary Radio because it's a brand new product from Chop Shop. That's chopshopstore.com, where the Planetary Society store is. It's our brand new baseball cap with a nice big Planetary Society blue logo designed by the boss, the CEO, over a star field. And then below that, in much smaller type, it says the Planetary Society. That's it. And you have until the 9th, December 9th, that's Wednesday at 8 a.m. Pacific time, to get us the answer to this one. Good luck. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about what you would point a planetary radar at.

Thank you, and good night. I think I would point a planetary radar at another planetary radar just to see what happens. But we can't do that now because there's only one left. We ought to take care of that situation. He's Bruce Betts. He's the chief scientist of the Planetary Society who's wondering about the physics of all this as I speak. Because he joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California,

and is made possible by its members who mourn the loss of any scientist or instrument of science. You can join our fight at planetary.org slash membership. Mark Hilverde is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser at Astro.