Atacama Large Millimeter Array | | | Organization | Multi-national | | Location | Llano de Chajnantor Observatory, Atacama desert, Chile | | Coordinates | 23°01′9.42″S, 67°45′11.44″W | | Altitude | 5,058.7 m | | Weather | 365 clear nights/year | | Webpages | official NRAO ALMA site
official UK site
official ESO site Download high resolution version (400x603, 109 KB) Atacama Large Millimeter Array logo Copyright status Public domain: ALMA. Source of image Taken on March 13, 2004 from [1]: NRAO ALMA This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ...
Download high resolution version (400x603, 109 KB) Atacama Large Millimeter Array logo Copyright status Public domain: ALMA. Source of image Taken on March 13, 2004 from [1]: NRAO ALMA This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ...
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at 5104 m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert, 50 kilometers to the north of San Pedro de Atacama. ...
The Atacama desert of Chile is a virtually rainless plateau made up of salt basins (salares), sand, and lava flows, extending from the Andes mountains to the Pacific Ocean. ...
| | Telescopes: | 64 identical 12-m reflectors connected by fibre-optic cables |
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is an international astronomy project that consists of a system of radio telescopes in an array formation, located at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. The telescope is expected to revolutionise modern astronomy, providing an insight on star formation in the early universe and imaging local star and planet formation in great detail. Radio telescopes are among many different tools used by astronomers Astronomy (Greek: αστÏονομία = άστÏον + νόμος, astronomia = astron + nomos, literally, law of the stars) is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earths atmosphere, such as stars, planets, comets, auroras, galaxies, and the cosmic background radiation. ...
The 64 metre radio telescope at Parkes Observatory In contrast to an ordinary telescope, which produces visible light images, a radio telescope sees radio waves emitted by radio sources, typically by means of a large parabolic (dish) antenna, or arrays of them. ...
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at 5104 m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert, 50 kilometers to the north of San Pedro de Atacama. ...
Atacama The Atacama desert of Chile and Peru is a virtually rainless plateau made up of salt basins (salares), sand, and lava flows, extending from the Andes mountains to the Pacific Ocean. ...
Capability
The telescopes are capable of detecting sub-millimeter and millimeter wavelengths. The array is expected to detect objects more distant than can be detected by any existing instrument, and will have far higher resolution than existing sub-millimeter telescopes such as the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. ...
The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) is a 15-metre submillimetre-wavelength telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. ...
Funding The project is funded in North America by the National Science Foundation (United States) in cooperation with the National Research Council (Canada); in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain and in Japan by the National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS). The logo of the National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. ...
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The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an international astronomical organisation, composed and supported by ten countries from the European Union plus Switzerland and was created in 1962. ...
ALMA is an equal partnership between North America and Europe, with enhancements enabled by the participation of Japan in cooperation with Chile. It is the largest and most expensive ground-based astronomical project currently under construction (current cost estimate is 1.5 billion Y2000 US dollars). World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ...
Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ...
Assembly The complex will be built primarily by European, US, Japanese and Canadian companies (including General Dynamics) and universities. Three prototype antennas have undergone evaluation at the Very Large Array site in New Mexico since 2002. Alcatel Alenia Space, a consortium of manufacturers from France, Italy and Germany, has been signed up to provide 25 of the antennas [1], the largest-ever European industrial contract. The first antenna will be delivered in 2007, and the rest at about one per month, finishing in 2011. General Dynamics NYSE: GD is a defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2005 it is the sixth largest defense contractor in the world [2]. The company has changed markedly in the post-Cold War era of defense consolidation. ...
A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. ...
2007 (MMVII) will be a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
2011 (MMXI) will be a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
General information ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of Europe by ESO, and on behalf of Japan by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is an institution set up by the United States government for the purpose of radio astronomy. ...
The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...
Project detail - Up to 64 x 12 meter antennae located at an elevation of 5,000 m at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory, enhanced by a compact array of 4 x 12m and 12 x 7m antennae (NSF currently considering reducing the number of antennae to 50[2])
- Imaging instrument in all atmospheric windows between 10 mm and 350 micrometres
- Array configurations from approximately 150 meters to 14 km
- Spatial resolution of 10 milliarcseconds, 10 times better than the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Hubble Space Telescope
- The ability to image sources arcminutes to degrees across at one arcsecond resolution
- Velocity resolution under 50 m/s
- Faster and more flexible imaging instrument than the VLA
- Largest and most sensitive instrument in the world at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths
- Point source detection sensitivity 20 times better than the VLA
A yagi antenna Most simply, an antenna is an electronic component designed to send or receive radio waves. ...
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at 5104 m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert, 50 kilometers to the north of San Pedro de Atacama. ...
A yagi antenna Most simply, an antenna is an electronic component designed to send or receive radio waves. ...
Imaging refers to the science of obtaining pictures or more complicated spatial representations, such as animations or 3-D computer graphics models, from physical things. ...
The atmospheric window refers to those wavelengths of infrared radiation that are, with the earths atmosphere in its natural state, not absorbed at all. ...
A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer), symbol µm, is an SI unit of length. ...
A second of arc or arcsecond is a unit of angular measurement which comprises one-sixtieth of an arcminute, or 1/3600 of a degree of arc or 1/1296000 ≈ 7. ...
The Very Large Array (VLA) is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Augustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some fifty miles (80 km) west of Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The VLA stands at , , at an altitude of 6970 ft (2124 m) above sea level. ...
// The Hubble Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a telescope in orbit around the Earth. ...
A minute of arc, arcminute, or MOA is a unit of angular measurement, equal to one sixtieth (1/60) of one degree. ...
See also The following is a list of astronomical observatories, along with initial dates of operation and location, if available. ...
CARMAs logo CARMA at night, credit:David MacMahon The Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) is an astronomical instrument composed of 23 radio telescopes. ...
The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) is a 15-metre submillimetre-wavelength telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. ...
The Plateau de Bure Interferometer is a six-antenna interferometer on the Plateau de Bure (2550m) in France, operated by the Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimétrique. ...
The Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) operates two observatories at millimeter wavelengths, which are open to the international astronomical community: The 30-m single-dish telescope on Pico Veleta (2850m), located in Sierra Nevada (Spain), and the six-antenna interferometer on the Plateau de Bure (2550m) in the...
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