Millions of people have seen footage of the famed Arecibo radio telescope‘s collapse in December 2020. What they would not have seen from those videos was Arecibo’s data center, located outside the danger zone. It stores the ‘golden copy’ of the telescope’s data — the original tapes, hard drives, and disk drives of sky scans since the 1960s.

Now, a new partnership will make sure that about three petabytes, or 3,000 terabytes, of telescope data is securely backed up off-site and made accessible to astronomers around the world, who will be able to use it to continue Arecibo Observatory’s legacy of discovery and innovation.

Working Together

Within weeks of Arecibo’s collapse, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) entered into an agreement with the University of Central Florida (UCF), the Engagement and Performance Operations Center (EPOC), the Arecibo Observatory, the Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence Pilot (CICoE Pilot), and Globus at the University of Chicago. Together, they’re moving the Arecibo radio telescope data to TACC’s Ranch, a long-term data mass storage system. Plans include expanding access to over 50 years of astronomy data from the Arecibo Observatory, which up until 2016 had been the world’s largest radio telescope. [Read the full article on Texas Advanced Computing Center | News]

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub) has joined CENIC’s California Research and Education Network (CalREN), a high-speed, high-capacity broadband computing network that connects 20 million users from the vast majority of research and academic institutions across California.

Medical research collaboration and discovery across multiple institutions is central to the mission of the CZ Biohub, which brings together physicians, scientists, and engineers from Stanford University, UC San Francisco, and UC Berkeley. Through its programs and funding, the CZ Biohub supports a new generation of medical researchers who are seamlessly integrating biology, engineering, mathematics, physics, and computer science to solve the world’s biggest medical problems and to collaborate with scientists around the world. [Read the full article at CENIC | News]

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted announced a new broadband expansion project located in the City of East Cleveland. The pilot project launched today will connect residents to reliable, low-cost high-speed internet.

“East Cleveland, like many other urban and rural communities, has lacked both the infrastructure and access to low-cost broadband for many residents. This new project plans to provide both the infrastructure and access for up to 2,000 families,” said Governor DeWine. “All of the partners in the public-private partnership have come together to bring access to high-speed internet for families throughout East Cleveland.”

The broad public-private partnership, spurred by BroadbandOhio, includes Case Western Reserve University, Connect, Cuyahoga County, Eaton Corporation, East Cleveland City Schools, GE Lighting- a Savant company, Greater Cleveland Partnership, InnovateOhio, Microsoft, OARnet, PCs for People, University Hospitals, and the Urban League of Cleveland.

“As soon as I learned that most families in East Cleveland didn’t have access to high-speed internet, I told the InnovateOhio team we’ve got to fix this,” said Lt. Governor Husted. “Starting today, more than 1,000 Ohio families, with many more to come, will have the opportunity to access affordable, high-speed internet – allowing students to do their homework online, parents to work online and families to be better able to participate in the modern economy, education and healthcare systems.” [Read full announcement on OARnet | NEWS]