Dr. Kristen Jones was a postdoctoral researcher at the Arecibo Observatory from September 2016 - August 2019, but her connection with AO started long before then. “I had been an REU student at the observatory 10 years before my postdoc,” Dr. Jones stated, referring to the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. “Data from that project were the basis for a paper I published in 2018.” Read More

Forty-eight tons (44,000 kilograms) of material from space fall onto the Earth each year. These meteoroids experience ablation and sputtering in the atmosphere, leaving behind metal and ion deposits that form thin layers in the ionosphere. Read More

How do clouds of neutral hydrogen atoms transform into molecular clouds, the birthplaces of all stars in our galaxy? This is an unanswered question in galactic astronomy that some scientists are investigating using the Arecibo Observatory (AO).

A unique, high-altitude plasma cavity formed over Arecibo during an ionospheric heating campaign conducted at the observatory in June of 2019. Simultaneously, the Arecibo Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) collected measurements of the narrow cavity, revealing an exceptionally deep depletion of the electron density and a strong enhancement of the electron and ion temperatures. Read More