Ukraine Destroys Legendary Soviet-Period Telescope As soon as Used to Cellphone Aliens

Ukrainian protection forces destroyed an enormous radio telescope in Crimea, a strong planetary transmitter as soon as used to help deep house missions and METI—the try and message extraterrestrial civilizations.

Ukraine destroyed Yevpatoria RT-70 in a drone assault to forestall Russia from utilizing it for army communication functions, Area.com reported. Russian protection forces reportedly carried out latest upgrades to the telescope to help assaults on Ukrainian territory, however the 230-foot (70-meter) antenna dish was constructed by the Soviet Union to review Venus and Mars and talk with deep house probes.

У Криму “Примари” ГУР знищили російський радіотелескоп РФ РТ-70 pic.twitter.com/XG0w2hMGiJ

— Українська правда ✌️ (@ukrpravda_news) August 31, 2025

Cellphone house

The RT-70 was one of many largest radio telescopes on this planet. Constructed within the Seventies, the telescope was able to delivering and receiving indicators for house experiments, together with these performed by SETI (Seek for Extraterrestrial Proof).

The telescope was used to ship a number of extraterrestrial messages. Between 1999 and 2003, the RT-70 was used to ship two units of interstellar messages to close by stars as a part of the Cosmic Call experiment. In 2001, a bunch of Russian youngsters used the telescope to ship the Teen Age Message sign, a sequence of interstellar radio transmissions directed towards six Solar-like stars. In 2008, RT-70 was used to transmit a high-powered message to Gliese 581c, a super-Earth exoplanet. The message, aptly titled “A Message from Earth,” contained 501 pictures, textual content, and songs chosen by the general public by way of a contest.

Except for trying to contact extraterrestrial intelligence, RT-70 was additionally used to help a number of Soviet-era house missions like Venera, Vega, and Phobos to discover Venus and Mars. It was additionally used as a part of the European Area Company’s Mars Categorical and Rosetta missions.

The radio telescope has been underneath Russian management since its annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Russia reportedly used the telescope to enhance the accuracy of its GLONASS satellite tv for pc navigation system, which is analogous to GPS, in accordance with Area.com.

The annexed Crimean peninsula is house to key observational services, together with the Shajn Mirror Telescope, the biggest optical instrument in Ukraine, and the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started in February 2022, resulted in main loss for Ukrainian analysis services, in accordance with a latest report in Nature Astronomy. Astronomical observatories have sustained heavy harm, and far gear has been destroyed, the report said. A 2024 UNESCO report estimated that $1.26 billion is required to revive public analysis infrastructure in Ukraine.