Latest Atacama desert Stories

LABOCA in Service at APEXThe world's largest bolometer camera for submillimetre astronomy is now in service at the 12-m APEX telescope, located on the 5100m high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. LABOCA was specifically designed for the study of extremely cold astronomical objects and, with its large field of view and very "A large fraction of all the gas in the Universe has extremely cold temperatures of around minus 250 degrees Celsius, a mere 20 degrees above absolute...

First ALMA Transporter Ready to GoThe first of two spectacular vehicles for the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Observatory rolled out of its hangar and passed successfully a series of tests. This vehicle, the ALMA antenna transporter, is a rather exceptional 'lorry' driving on 28 tyres. It is 10m wide, 20m long and 6m high, weighs 130 tons and has as much power as two Formula 1 engines. This colossus will be able to transport a 115-ton antenna and set it down on a...

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- Searching for clues to the potential for life on Mars, NASA scientists recently explored microbial communities in some of the world's oldest, driest and most remote deserts, in China's northwest region, and found evidence suggesting that conditions there may be similar to those in certain regions of Mars. This is the first comprehensive study of microbial ecosystems in the extreme deserts of China. Scientists looked for microbial life and tried to determine climate's...

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international telescope project, reached a major milestone on 2 March, when two 12-m ALMA prototype antennas were first linked together as an integrated system to observe an astronomical object. "This achievement results from the integration of many state-of-the-art components from Europe and North America and bodes well for the success of ALMA in Chile", said Catherine Cesarsky, ESO's Director General. The milestone...

By Fiona OrtizHUMBERSTONE, Chile (Reuters) - Atacama is a fearsome, ugly desert in northern Chile, a vast territory devoid even of weeds and scattered with hundreds of ghost towns.Ancient, abandoned smoke stacks are almost all that's left of the boomtowns that sprang up in this desolate wilderness in the 1800s when miners migrated here to dig up Chile's white gold -- nitrate used in fertilizers, detergent and explosives.British and Chilean mine owners built huge fortunes on nitrate before the...

The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) project celebrates the inauguration of its outstanding 12-m telescope, located on the 5100m high Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert (Chile). The APEX telescope, designed to work at sub-millimetre wavelengths, in the 0.2 to 1.5 mm range, passed successfully its Science Verification phase in July, and since then is performing regular science observations. This new front-line facility provides access to the "Cold Universe" with...

PITTSBURGH - Carnegie Mellon University researchers and their colleagues from NASA's Ames Research Center, the universities of Tennessee, Arizona and Iowa, as well as Chilean researchers at Universidad Catolica del Norte (Antofagasta) are preparing for the final stage of a three-year project to develop a prototype robotic astrobiologist, a robot that can explore and study life in the driest desert on Earth. The team will direct and monitor Zoë, an autonomous solar-powered rover developed...

Astrobiology Magazine -- Carnegie Mellon University researchers and their colleagues from NASA's Ames Research Center, the universities of Tennessee, Arizona and Iowa, as well as Chilean researchers at Universidad Catolica del Norte (Antofagasta) are preparing for the final stage of a three-year project to develop a prototype robotic astrobiologist, a robot that can explore and study life in the driest desert on Earth.The team will direct and monitor Zoë, an autonomous solar-powered rover...

APEX telescope Sees First Light at Chajnantor ESO -- The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) project has just passed another major milestone by successfully commissioning its new technology 12-m telescope, located on the 5100m high Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert (Chile). The APEX telescope, designed to work at sub-millimetre wavelengths, in the 0.2 to 1.5 mm range, has just performed its first scientific observations. This new front-line facility will provide access to the...

Planetary scientist Chris McKay describes one of the driest place on Earth and how one might test for the equivalent of a bacterial 'treeline', a region so harsh in the Andes Mountains where even microbes cannot thrive.Astrobiology Magazine -- Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at the Ames Research Center, has long been investigating the coldest and driest places on Earth. These harsh environments - and the ability of life to adapt there - could point the way to finding life on Mars. McKay...