The iconic radio telescope was the world's largest for decades, and it's weathered a few hurricanes as well as pop-culture fame in its 57 years of beaming out interstellar messages and receiving radio wave signals from space. .

"For nearly six decades, the Arecibo Observatory has served as a beacon for breakthrough science and what a partnership with a community can look like," NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement announcing the decision to decommission the telescope.

"What I love the most about working with Arecibo is how it is a community institution," said astronomer Kevin Ortiz Ceballos from the University of Puerto Rico.

The Arecibo Observatory, named after its nearest city on Puerto Rico's northern coast, became a major centre for science education and provided priceless training opportunities for many aspiring Puerto Rican scientists, too.

The Arecibo Observatory is part of Puerto Rican culture and gave Puerto Ricans the opportunity to do science in their own backyard, said Kelby D.

The Arecibo Observatory has taught me friendships, what is is to be inclusive and diverse but as well that science has no barriers.

Puerto Rican scientist Junellie González Quiles, now a doctoral student at John Hopkins University, recounted how she was inspired to study astronomy after astronomers bearing telescopes from the Arecibo Observatory visited her summer camp.

Botanist Amelia Merced said visiting the Arecibo Observatory on a school excursion made her realise she could be a scientist

Shark scientist Melissa Cristina Márquez similarly reflected on what Arecibo meant to her as a Puerto Rican who has followed a career in science all the way to Curtin University in Australia