War & Paradise: The Territories Of The U.S.

Brainy and Boozy?

Just don’t let Puerto’s excellence in all things partying distract you from one of the most impressive scientific structures in the world. The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, completed in 1963, was the largest radio telescope in the world until July 2016. Today, the telescope remains in use, monitored constantly by an international team of scientists that tag and track asteroids on possible collision courses with the Earth.

In the past, this historic site was the location of one of the first attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial life in 1974. The Arecibo Message that scientists shot 25,000 light years away consisted of a pixelated image of numbers, stick figures, chemical formulas, and a depiction of the telescope itself. We’re still not sure if it’s good news or not that there hasn’t been a reply yet…