World’s Best Observatory Starts Working in Chile

The most complex observatory in the world, the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA) started its operations in the north of Chile, were it could observe the cold universe, the clouds of cosmic dust and gas were the stars and planets are created.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) pointed out that ALMA will start to work with a third of the 66 antennas that it will have when its construction is over in 2013. This project has 5,000 meters of altitude in Chajnantor, in the desert of Atacama.

The antennas of ALMA function like radio telescopes designed to detect waves longer that the visible light. These antennas can adopt different positions in the desert. In the measure that the observatory grows it will have more antennas to increase its coverage and precision for their studies. (AV)