Atacama Large Millimeter Array
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| Organization | Multi-national |
|---|---|
| Location | Llano de Chajnantor Observatory, Atacama desert, Chile |
| Coordinates | Template:Coor dms |
| Altitude | 5,058.7 m |
| Weather | 365 clear nights/year |
| Webpages | official NRAO ALMA site |
| 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.
Contents |
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.
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).
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).
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. The Italian company Alcatel 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 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).
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
See also
- List of observatories
- CARMA a sensitive millimeter-wave array operated by a consortium including Caltech, University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Maryland and University of Chicago.
- James Clerk Maxwell Telescope The most sensitive existing sub-millimeter telescope
- Plateau de Bure Interferometer, one of the most successful existing millimeter-wave arrays, which is operated by IRAM.
External links
es:Atacama Large Millimeter Array fr:Atacama Large Millimeter Array ja:ALMA sv:Atacama Large Millimeter Array