Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
For more than half a century, the 1,000-foot-diameter spherical reflector dish at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico was the largest radio telescope in the world. Completed in 1963, the dish was built in a natural sinkhole, with the telescope’s feed antenna suspended 500 feet above the dish on a 1.8-million-pound steel platform. Three concrete towers and more than 4 miles of steel cables supported the platform.
Primarily used for research in radio astronomy, atmospheric science and radar astronomy, the telescope’s unique and futuristic design led to it being the site of the climactic fight scene in the 1995 James Bond film, “GoldenEye.” In the film, after a struggle with Agent 007, the villain “slips” from Bond’s grasp and is ultimately done in when the platform falls on him.
Twenty-five years later, on December 1, 2020, it was the cable wires that slipped and caused the platform to collapse in real life. Fortunately, nobody was hurt during that incident, but it did lead to the telescope’s untimely demise.
Credit: Arecibo Observatory, NSF, Thornton Tomasetti and ORNL
For more than half a century, the 1,000-foot-diameter spherical reflector dish at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico was the largest radio telescope in the world. Completed in 1963, the dish was built in a natural sinkhole, with the telescope’s feed antenna suspended 500 feet above the dish on a 1.8-million-pound steel platform. Three concrete towers and more than 4 miles of steel cables supported the platform.
Primarily used for research in radio astronomy, atmospheric science and radar astronomy, the telescope’s unique and futuristic design led to it being the site of the climactic fight scene in the 1995 James Bond film, “GoldenEye.” In the film, after a struggle with Agent 007, the villain “slips” from Bond’s grasp and is ultimately done in when the platform falls on him.
Twenty-five years later, on December 1, 2020, it was the cable wires that slipped and caused the platform to collapse in real life. Fortunately, nobody was hurt during that incident, but it did lead to the telescope’s untimely demise.
Credit: Arecibo Observatory, NSF, Thornton Tomasetti and ORNL
