At the top of a mountain on Puerto Rico\u2019s beautiful island of Culebra, two trailer-size containers sit as quietly as the nature around them. Here, with a view of the Caribbean Sea below and the night constellations above, scientists from UCF\u2019s Florida Space Institute (FSI) are busy collecting data at this remote research hub called the Climate Center for Open Research and Education CCORE).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider Puerto Rico a beacon of science,\u201d says FSI Director Julie Brisset. \u201cOur scientists in Culebra are now gathering precise data on how the upper atmosphere reacts to human activity and solar activity. The data provides us critical input regarding [environmental impacts] and the safety of our satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n
The equipment on the mountaintop is the offspring of Puerto Rico\u2019s iconic Arecibo Observatory. The research from here carries on a portion of a legacy that began when the world\u2019s largest radio telescope at the time (more than three football fields in diameter) became operational in 1963. The legacy gained momentum when the U.S. National Science Foundation chose UCF to manage the observatory in 2018, but then came to an abrupt halt on December 1, 2020, when cable failures caused the 900-ton instrument platform to collapse onto the dish, destroying the 1,000-foot-wide telescope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember walking up the hill that morning to the site and seeing people crying,\u201d says Olga Figueroa-Miranda, associate director of business and education development for FSI. \u201cEveryone in Puerto Rico, even our staff, thought it was the end \u2014 but it was not.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took a year and a half to clean up the site. A team from FSI optimistically developed plans for a new telescope in hopes of someday securing funding for it. In the days after the collapse, researchers turned their focus to analyzing the one-of-a-kind data that had been collected for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a misperception that the work ended when the dish fell,\u201d Brisset says. \u201cBut we needed the research team to move forward with important planetary science. For example, they have data on hundreds of asteroids that need to be analyzed for specifics like size, density and orbital path. We now know that an \u2018Earth grazer\u2019 will pass through on April 13, 2029. We\u2019ve also been using the high-tech instruments that remained intact. Some of them we sent to Culebra.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s how the island of barely 1,000 residents became home to CCORE and its GPS receivers, lasers, cloud sensors, spectrometers, interferometers and photometers. The high-altitude spot is close enough to the equator and far enough from atmospheric interference for researchers to make discoveries about the space environment that would otherwise go undetected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe location is breathtaking,\u201d Figueroa-Miranda says. \u201cIt feels like another galaxy.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a mix of emotion Figueroa-Miranda\u2019s voice. Born and raised in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, she and her siblings were among tens of thousands of local schoolchildren who visited the Arecibo Observatory on field trips and grew an interest in STEM. She understands first-hand the meaning of the research.<\/p>\n
\u201cArecibo became as important to Puerto Rican pride as our food, our nature and our beaches. That\u2019s why we grieved the loss,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The despair turned to hope, because after the telescope collapsed and broke hearts, UCF and FSI made a commitment to retain not only the unaffected instrumentation but a much more important resource: People.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring one of the worst times of our lives, UCF and FSI made sure we had a home,\u201d says Figueroa-Miranda. \u201cThey reminded us how important this work is. And now we have CCORE. Everyone in Puerto Rico knows that UCF did not leave us. They value us. It makes us proud to have this essential role in scientific research.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite not having the large-scale observatory, Arecibo scientists at FSI are still writing proposals for grants to study critical science and are publishing studies based on past data obtained with the telescope, including examining near-Earth asteroids<\/a> and uncovering the mysteries of gravitational waves<\/a>. There are now 10 Arecibo scientists working at UCF\u2019s FSI in Orlando.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re the kind of people who keep going,\u201d says Brisset. \u201cWe moved everything we could to Culebra because we know we can build a great climate and research center there. What you see there now is hopefully just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n Figueroa-Miranda envisions a permanent facility on the mountain, with labs where undergraduate students come to collaborate and bring theories into practice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always thought the opportunities to study space in Arecibo were limitless,\u201d Figueroa-Miranda says. \u201cNow we\u2019re looking to Culebra with great hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the collapse of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, researchers from the Florida Space Institute found new ways \u2014 and a new place \u2014 to conduct critical space sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":140687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[23,24],"tags":[1775,14916,4361],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-140686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-science-technology","tag-florida-space-instit","tag-research","tag-space"],"yoast_head":"\n