Nestled away in the wooded outskirts of Arecibo in Puerto Rico sits a gigantic, man-made crater. It's not actually a crater, but a radio telescope called Arecibo Observatory built in the sixties by Cornell University in collaboration with the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory.
Unlike optical telescopes which gather images using visible light waves, radio telescopes use low frequency radio waves and the telescope needs to be tucked away in the woods so that it doesn't receive interference from nearby radio and television signals. Puerto Rico was chosen as the location of the observatory because it is near the equator, allowing maximum ability to study celestial bodies.
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