With the death of Arecibo, an era ends for radio astronomy

ARECIBO OBSERVATORY was conceived in an era of space-age monumentalism, an imposition of geometry onto geology as striking in its simplicity and scale as the greatest brutalist architecture. When the James Bond franchise, in its pomp a showcase for iconic 1960s design, eventually got around to using the 306-metre dish as a location in the 1990s, the only surprise was that it had taken so long.

The observatory was not new to spycraft. It was created as a tool for using radar to study the ionosphere, an electrically charged upper layer of the atmosphere. America’s defence department had an interest in such work, which might lead to new ways of characterising incoming missiles or of snooping on enemy transmissions, so it stumped up some cash.