The Massive Radio Telescope Featured In GoldenEye Has Collapsed

The 1995 iconic James Bond movie GoldenEye and the 1997 game which was based on the movie, included an epic action sequence at the end where 007 fights on an enormous radio telescope.

That telescope, which is located at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, has now crashed on its own. Plans to demolish the famous telescope were already in motion and on cue, it totally collapsed by itself.

The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. No injuries were reported. NSF is working with stakeholders to assess the situation. Our top priority is maintaining safety. NSF will release more details when they are confirmed. pic.twitter.com/Xjbb9hPUgD

— National Science Foundation (@NSF) December 1, 2020

The telescope hosted the fight between Pierce Brosnan’s Bond took on Alec Trevelyan, played by Sean Bean. The dish had been in service for 57 years. Check it out in the video below.

It has appeared in many movies but famously it also appeared in the awesome and one the best sci-fi movie, 1997 sci-fi Contact, which starred Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. In real life, the telescope assisted in many scientific breakthroughs, such as detecting the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 1999. This led NASA to send a robotic space probe there in 2018 to get the first-ever asteroid soil sample. The probe will be back in 2023.