Drone footage captures the moment cables supporting the 900-ton Arecibo Observatory SNAP and cause the world's largest telescope to collapse

• Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory radio telescope collapsed early Tuesday
• Drones were investigating cables on the telescope when the event happened
• One clip shows the platform swaying and then falling out of frame 
• The other is a view of the cable attached to Tower 4 that appears to be frayed
• It fails, breaks away from the tower and releases the platform onto a dish below
• The catwalk, supporting towers, azimuth arm and  Gregorian dome also fell

New footage of Arecibo Observatory collapsing in the jungle of Puerto Rico shows the moment its main cables snapped and sent a massive platform hurling to the ground - triggering a reaction that led to its destruction.

Drones were investigating cables around the telescope when the restraints failed and dropped the 900-ton platform onto to the reflector dish 400 feet below.

In one of the videos, the platform begins swaying in the air before letting out a loud roar as it dislodged from the supporting cable and snapping into pieces as it dropped.

The second part of the clip is a view of the cables at the top of a support tower, which shows a group of frayed wires and an empty spot where cables were that had previously failed this year.

One of the cables begins to strain and then violently flies out of its support, creating a cloud of smoke and debris.

The drone pans to the left and captures the catastrophic event of the fallen platform, catwalk and azimuth arm. 

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Devastating footage of Arecibo Observatory collapsing in the jungle of Puerto Rico shows the moment the telescope’s main cables snapped and sent a massive platform hurling to the ground

The collapse occurred around 8am local time Tuesday that scientists stunned who relied on what was once the world’s largest telescope to uncover cosmic wonders in deep space.

Ramon Lugo, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida, which manages the 57-year-old radio telescope for the National Science Foundation (NSF), told Daily Mail.com in an email: ‘Well when I got the call the morning I felt like throwing up... then I felt very sad.

‘I have worked with this team for almost 3 years... we have accomplished a lot, now there is uncertainty. I feel bad for the staff, some have spent their entire careers at the Observatory. I feel like I let them down.’

The National Science Foundation (NSF) released the footage of the collapse Thursday, which shows two different views of the event. 

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The first clip provides a view looking up at the platform and begins with the massive structure still attached to the cable. It begins to sway, which is when the main cable snapped from one of the three surrounding support towers

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The platform breaks away from the cable, splits into pieces and disappears from the frame

The first clip provides a view looking up at the platform and begins with the massive structure still attached to the cable.

It begins to sway, which is when the main cable snapped from one of the three surrounding support towers.

The platform breaks away from the cable, splits into pieces and disappears from the frame.

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Moments after, the tops of the towers, some which measure 60 feet long, tumble over from the pressure

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The second portion of the video shared by NSF provides an up-close look at the main cable breaking from the top of Tower 4. The clip shows two cables are missing, both failed this year, and the main cable appears to be slowly fraying apart

Moments after, the tops of the towers, some which measure 60 feet long, tumble over from the pressure.

John Abruzzo, managing principal of Thornton Tomasetti, was sent in with a team to assess the collapse and said it involved ‘some violent and unpredicted behavior,’ Gizmodo reports.

The second portion of the video shared by NSF provides an up-close look at the main cable breaking from the top of Tower 4.

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The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses  (pictured taken Nov. 19)

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The middle of the three remaining cables violent breaks off from the Tower, which seems to have snapped another supporting the catwalk– triggering the entire structure to collapse

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Scientists said they were aware of a deteriorating situation and notified NSF on Monday about their concerns that Arecibo would collapse this week

The clip shows two cables are missing, both failed this year, and the main cable appears to be slowly fraying apart.

Abruzzo said that each cable is made of 170 wires.

The middle of the three remaining cables violent breaks off from the Tower, which seems to have snapped another supporting the catwalk– triggering the entire structure to collapse.

Lugo said he and his team were aware of a deteriorating situation and notified NSF on Monday about their concerns that Arecibo would collapse this week.

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Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century has collapsed

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The giant telescope was also used in programs that search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) because its location provided scientists access to one-third of the cosmos

Arecibo Observatory  was built in the 1960s with money from the Defense Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses

It is famous for detecting whirling pulsars, capturing geological features of Mars and helping astronomers discover the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, along with making an appearance in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye.

The giant telescope was also used in programs that search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) because its location provided scientists access to one-third of the cosmos.

SETI Institute gave the telescope a personal, Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomert wrote: 'Losing Arecibo is like losing a big brother. While life will continue, something powerful and profoundly wonderful is gone.’

Arecibo Observatory suffered another failure in August when an auxiliary cable broke that resulted in a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung above it. 

The NFS said crews who evaluated the structure after the first incident, but determined that the remaining cables could handle the additional weight.

While the observatory was awaiting delivery of two replacement auxiliary cables, as well as two temporary cables, another main cable broke on the same tower on November 6.

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Arecibo Observatory suffered another failure in August when an auxiliary cable broke that resulted in a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung above it. But another cable failed this month, which led to the devastating collapse 

This tore a new hole in the dish and damaged nearby cables, leading officials to warn that the entire structure could collapse.

Ralph Gaume, director of NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences, said: 'Leadership at Arecibo Observatory and UCF did a commendable job addressing this situation, acting quickly and pursuing every possible option to save this incredible instrument.'

'In the end, a preponderance of data showed that we simply could not do this safely and that is a line we cannot cross.' 

ARECIBO OBSERVATORY HISTORY

1963: Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory Commissioned for service on November 1 for $9.7 million.

1965: One of its first accomplishments was establishing the rotation rate of Mercury, which turned out to be 59 days rather than the previously estimated 88 days.

1968: Sporadic radio pulses from the direction of the Crab Nebula supernova remnant found at Green Bank were shown by Arecibo to come from a 33-ms period pulsar situated at the centre of the nebula. 

1974: New high precision surface reflector installed, planetary radar transmitter installed.

1974: The first pulsar in a binary system was discovered, leading to important confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity and a Nobel Prize 1993 for astronomers Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor.

1974: On 16 November, the 'Arecibo message' was broadcast into space toward the globular star cluster M13 25,000 light years away. 

The message's main purpose was to demonstrate the capabilities of newly installed equipment in the upgraded radio telescope and was an attempt to contact extraterrestrial intelligence.

1979: A large, anomalous travelling ionospheric disturbance (that is, an upper atmosphere wave) moving southeast to northwest was detected in the early morning hours - something researchers had never before witnessed. Data helped define the probable cause as an air nuclear blast over the Indian Ocean.  

1981: First radar maps of the geologic surface of Venus are produced.

1982: The discovery of strong 'megamaser' emission from the hydroxyl (OH) molecule in the starburst galaxy Arp 220 (IC 4553).

1982: The discovery of millisecond pulsars, which rotate several hundred times per second. This demonstrated the existence of two classes of pulsars - the millisecond pulsars and the slower-rotating pulsars, which rotate about once per second. 

1989: The first measurement of hydrogen escape flux from Earth is presented, based on velocity distribution measurements of the hydrogen airglow emission in the upper atmosphere.

Early 90s: The first planets outside the solar system were discovered around Pulsar B1257+12, a rapidly rotating pulsar with three Earth-like planets in orbit.  

1992: In October, ice is discovered in shadowed craters at Mercury's north pole. Later observations show ice in south pole craters as well.  

1996: A layer of helium ions is shown to be a common, but previously unrecognised feature in the low-latitude ionosphere near 600 km.

1998: Arecibo Observatory 'found' the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft on July 28, after it lost communications with European Space Agency and NASA,. by bouncing a radar signal off the satellite. SOHO's mission was resumed and continues to produce data today.

May 2000: Radar Observations of Asteroid 216 Kleopatra reveal a 'dog bone' shaped metal-rich object. 

September 2000: Discovery that 2000 DP107 was the first near-Earth asteroid identified by radar as a binary system. The primary is roughly spherical with a diameter of a half mile and the smaller secondary, which orbits it in 1.8 days, is about 1000 feet.   

2003: Evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on the Saturn satellite Titan is established using the Observatory planetary radar. 

April 2004: Installation of the Arecibo L-band Feed Array, enabling a wide variety of astronomical surveys including discovering pulsars, mapping the gas in our Galaxy, and searches for other galaxies.  

2005-2012: Radar imaging of Mars reveals lava flows and near-surface geologic features not seen in visible images. This provides new insights into Mars surface geology. 

2006: Search for water ice in the permanent shadow of the lunar Shackleton Crater disputes evidence for water ice on the lunar surface.  

October 2006: Radar images of the south pole of the moon reveal no evidence for thick deposits of ice. 

November 2006: Radar images of binary asteroid (66391) 1999 KW4 in May 2001 and again in June 2002 reveal exotic physical and dynamical properties which may be common among near-Earth binaries.    

March 2007: Radar images of Mercury reveal features to be studied further by the Messenger spacecraft over the next several years.   

2007: The near-Earth asteroid 2005 PH5 was observed to be increasing in spin rate, due to non-uniform absorption and emission of solar radiation.

2007: Previously undetected radio lines of the molecule hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and the presence of the molecule methanimine (CH2NH), were recently discovered in the distant 'starburst galaxy' Arp 220.         

February 2008: Discovery of the first triple asteroid system among the near-Earth asteroids. The asteroid, 2001 SN263, is about 1.5 miles in diameter, with two moons orbiting it. 

2008–2012: Observations discover a radio outburst in the nearby galaxy NGC 660, ten times brighter than a radio supernova.    

2011: Observations of brown dwarfs find the coldest star to show radio emission. 

November 2011: Radar imaging of near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55, which made a very close flyby. This dark, spheroidal asteroid was found to be about 1,148 feet in diameter. 

2012: An ion-neutral chemistry model is developed to successfully describe thin layers of neutral metal atoms at above 62 miles altitudes.