Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)

When completed early in the next decade, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will be among the most powerful telescopes ever built. With unprecedented sensitivity, resolution, and imaging capability, it will explore the universe via millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength light, one of astronomy's last frontiers. ALMA will open a new window on celestial origins, capturing new information about the very first stars and galaxies in the universe, and directly imaging the formation of planets

Located at in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, one of the world's best sites for astronomy, the ALMA telescope array will reside at an elevation of 16,500 feet above sea level and include at least 66 radio telescopes.

An international partnership among East Asia, Europe, and North America with the Republic of Chile is building ALMA.

NRAO leads the North American component of the effort, whose participants include the United States, Canada, and Taiwan. North American contributions include:

• The North American ALMA Science Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, ALMA "headquarters" for North America
• Super-cooled, super-conducting receiver cartridges for ALMA bands 3 and 6
• An ALMA "Front End Integration Center" in Charlottesville, Virginia where receiver cartridges from around the world are integrated into large cabinets that are then shipped to Chile for installation into antennas
• Twenty-five 12-meter antennas, the most technically advanced and precise ever built
• ALMA's photonic local oscillator, which provides a crucial reference signal for the antennas
• Digital electronics for transmitting signals from the antennas
• The correlator for the extended array, an ultra-powerful supercomputer that will combine signals from ALMA antennas billions of times a second
• The Array Operations Site (AOS) technical building, second highest steel frame building in the world
• Road and power distribution to the AOS
• A variety of scientific software tools

To learn more about ALMA visit the ALMA website operated by the Joint ALMA Observatory.

The left image is a simulation of the rich detail that ALMA will probe when it observes the disks of material surrounding many stars. The right low-resolution image represents the best that existing radio telescope arrays can achieve. (Credit: NRAO/AUI; A. Wootten)