Arecibo telescope -
The
Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and
Ionosphere
Center (NAIC), a
national research Centre operated by
Cornell
University
under a cooperative agreement with the National Science
Foundation.
Arecibo is the world's largest single-dish radio telescope (as
at May 2009) The huge dish is 305 m in diameter, 167 feet deep,
and covers an area of about twenty acres. The surface is made of
almost 40,000 perforated aluminum panels, each measuring about 3
feet by 6 feet, supported by a network of steel cables.