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Arecibo Observatory Radio Telescope, National Astronomy And Ionosphere Center, Arecibo, Puerto Rico
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General information
The main collecting dish is 305 m (1,000 ft) in diameter, constructed inside the depression left by a karst sinkhole. It contains the largest curved focusing dish on Earth, giving Arecibo the largest electromagnetic-wave-gathering capacity. The dish surface is made of 38,778 perforated aluminum panels, each measuring about 3 by 6 feet (1 by 2 m), supported by a mesh of steel cables.
The telescope has three radar transmitters, with effective isotropic radiated powers of 20 TW at 2380 MHz, 2.5 TW (pulse peak) at 430 MHz, and 300 MW at 47 MHz.
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