Latest Atacama Large Millimeter Array Stories

European Southern Observatory (ESO) On 13 March 2013 the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, will be inaugurated, celebrating ALMA’s transition from a construction project to a fully fledged observatory and marking the milestone of all the major systems of the observatory being operational. More than 50 of ALMA’s antennas will be in operation, and all 66 will be fully assembled. The inauguration ceremony will...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online - Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3 Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered that the outer region of a dusty disc encircling a brown dwarf contains solid grains like those found in denser discs of newborn stars. The find challenges theories of how rock, Earth-scale planets form, suggesting the planets may be more common in the Universe than expected. Scientists believe rocky planets form...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online It has taken more than a decade of design and construction, but North America has finally delivered the last of 25 antenna dishes, marking an important milestone in the construction of an observatory astronomers are using to open up a "final frontier" of the spectrum of visible light to exploration. The dishes are 12-meters in diameter, and comprise the North American share of antennas for the international ALMA telescope. Stretching...

[ Watch the Video: Slicing Through View of the Material Around R Sculptoris ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have discovered an unexpected spiral structure in the material around an old star called R Sculptoris The team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to discover the surprising spiral structure in the gas around the red giant star, which could mean there is a previously unseen companion star orbiting the star....

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is celebrating 50 years since it was founded on October 5, 1962. The signing of the ESO Convention and the founding of ESO was the culmination of the dream of leading astronomers from five European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. These astronomers decided to join forces with the goal of building a large telescope that would give them great access to...

On 5 October 2012, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) will broadcast A Day in the Life of ESO, a free, live event on the web, as part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations. There will be live observations from ESO’s flagship observatory, the Very Large Telescope (VLT), on Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert, as well as fascinating talks from astronomers at ESO’s Headquarters in Germany. Members of the public are invited to ask questions in advance of the event, or during the...

NEWTON, N.C., Sept. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies is partnering with Stratosat Datacom (Pty) Ltd. to supply 64 radio-telescope antennas, ancillary electronic components and support for South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope program. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120906/PH69591 ) The Stratosat/General Dynamics SATCOM consortium will perform a minimum of 75 percent of the work on the 632 million rand ($75 million) contract in South Africa...

Using an array of radio telescopes, researchers from Europe and Japan have discovered a submillimeter galaxy -- a type of galaxy that has intense star formation activity and is covered by large amounts of dust -- located approximately 12.4 billion light-years away. The international team of experts, which was led by Kyoto University Associate Professor Tohru Nagao, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in southern Chile to locate the galaxy, the researchers announced...

A new image of the center of the distinctive galaxy Centaurus A, made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), shows how the new telescope, which is still under construction, allows astronomers to see with unprecedented quality through the opaque dust lanes that obscure the galaxy's center. Centaurus A is a massive elliptical radio galaxy (a galaxy that emits strong radio waves) and is the most prominent, as well as the nearest, radio galaxy in the sky. Its very...

[ Watch the Video ] Astronomers have made a breakthrough discovery in understanding a nearby planetary system, giving clues about how these systems form and evolve. Scientists used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to find that planets orbiting the star Fomalhaut must be smaller than originally thought. The high-resolution images show that both the inner and outer edges of the thin, dusty disk have very sharp edges.  This, as well as computer simulations, have...