More than a month on from Hurricane Maria, Arecibo Observatory, the gargantuan radio telescope built into a depression in Puerto Rico’s karst hills, is still waiting to resume normal operations. Despite have suffered little damage, the observatory, like the rest of the island, lacks enough fuel to run generators. Meanwhile, the telescope and its infrastructure have become the unlikely base for an ongoing relief effort for its roughly 110 staff and the communities around it. And in a painful irony, while the staff pull their own lives back together, they face the prospect that their professional careers in Puerto Rico may be about to end not because of a natural disaster, but because of shifting priorities. This week, the government advisers of the National Science Board will be discussing the observatory’s future.

中文翻译：

---

巨型射电望远镜为波多黎各的救援提供帮助

在飓风玛丽亚发生一个多月后，建在波多黎各喀斯特山丘凹陷中的巨大射电望远镜阿雷西博天文台仍在等待恢复正常运行。尽管受到的破坏很小，但与岛上的其他地方一样，天文台缺乏足够的燃料来运行发电机。与此同时，望远镜及其基础设施已成为其大约 110 名工作人员及其周围社区正在进行的救援工作的不太可能的基地。具有讽刺意味的是，当员工们重新回到自己的生活时，他们面临的前景是，他们在波多黎各的职业生涯可能即将结束，不是因为自然灾害，而是因为工作重点的转变。本周，国家科学委员会的政府顾问将讨论天文台的未来。