Senator Tom Harkin (center), Democrat from Iowa and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, discusses NSF’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico with Fernando Camilo, director of Radio Astronomy at Universities Space Research Association (USRA), and Mike Nolan, director of Planetary Radar Science at USRA. The senator was there for a site visit in November 2013. Arecibo Observatory is the home of the largest single dish radio telescope on Earth. Operated by Cornell University for its first 48 years, the NSF facility has been operated by SRI International, USRA, and Universidad Metropolitana, a private university in San Juan, since October 2011. In 1971, the Arecibo Observatory was incorporated into the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC). Arecibo is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2013.

Credit: Karen Pearce, NSF