Il primo occhio di Alma

Issata la prima delle 66 antenne del telescopio (www.almaobservatory.org, in costruzione nel deserto cileno di Chajnantor,a 5.000 metri di altitudine (Credit ALMA-ESO/NAOJ/NRAO).

Script video:
00:05 [Narrator] 1. High in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, one of the worlds most advanced telescopes has just passed a major

milestone.

ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, is under construction here on the Plateau of Chajnantor, at an altitude of 5000

m.

The telescope is being built by a global partnership between east Asia, Europe and North America in cooperation with the Republic of

Chile. The first of its state-of-the-art antennas has just been handed over to the project.

00:39 [Narrator] 2. ALMA will initially comprise 66 high-precision antennas, with the option to expand in the future. There will be an

array of fifty 12-metre antennas, acting together as a single giant telescope, and a compact array composed of 7-metre and 12-metre

diameter antennas.

The first 12-metre diameter antenna, built by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation for the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, one of

the ALMA partners, has just been handed over to the observatory.

It will shortly be joined by North American and European antennas.

01:17 INTERVIEW Thijs de Grauuw 3. Our Japanese colleagues have managed to make this antenna work and meet the specifications. We are

very excited about this because now we can fully equip this antenna for scientific observations. 01:34 [Narrator] 4. Antennas arriving

at the ALMA site undergo a series of tests to ensure that they meet the strict requirements of the telescope. The antennas have surfaces

accurate to less than the thickness of a human hair, and can be pointed precisely enough to pick out a golf ball at a distance of 15 km.

This antenna handover is a major milestone, as the observatory team can now proceed with integrating the rest of the components,

including the sensitive receivers that will collect the faint cosmic signals from space.

02:10 [Narrator] 5. The antennas are tested at the Operations Support Facility, at an altitude of 2900 m, before being moved to the

plateau of Chajnantor at 5000m. The Operations Support Facility will also be the centre of the observatorys scientific activities.

02:30 [Narrator] 6. ALMA is being built on the Chajnantor plateau, high in the Chilean Andes, because the sites extreme dryness and

altitude offer excellent conditions for observing the submillimetre-wavelength radio waves for which the telescope is designed.

In addition, the wide plateau at Chajnantor offers ample space for the construction of the antenna array, which is spread out and linked

together over distances of more than 16 kilometres. 02:59 [Narrator] 7. The ALMA antennas must withstand the harsh conditions at

Chajnantor with strong winds, cold temperatures and a thin atmosphere with half as much oxygen as at sea level. This forbidding

environment also poses challenges for the workers building ALMA.

03:19 INTERVIEW Thijs de Grauuw 8. It is an antenna that has been developed and which is very special because it will be exposed to the

high altitude with the harsh environment of high and low temperatures with strong winds and strong sunshine. 03:37 [Narrator] 9. The

antennas, which each weigh about 100 tons, can be moved to different positions in order to reconfigure the ALMA telescope. This will be

carried out by two custom-designed transporters, each of which is 10 metres wide, 20 metres long, and has 28 wheels. 03:55 [Narrator] 10.

With ALMA, astronomers will study the cool Universe the molecular gas and tiny dust grains from which stars, planetary systems,

galaxies, and life itself are formed. ALMA will provide new, much-needed insights into the formation of stars and planets, and will

reveal distant galaxies in the early Universe, which we see as they were over ten billion years ago.

04:22

The ALMA Project is a partnership between the scientific communities of East Asia, Europe and North America with Chile.
www.almaobservatory.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• radio
• telescopio
• chile
• alma
• antenna
• Eso
• universo
• galassie

[carlitomoor69]

Chile en la vanguardia de las observaciones astronómicas.

Bien por mi pais.

[Ogu2009]

Atacama, Chile wonderful place for wonderful Alma projet ...bravo bravisimo...!!