The world's largest radio telescope network is ready to operate phase 1 in the Atacama desert in northern Chile.
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2 antennas of ALMA. (Photo: AFP)
As of July 28, the ALMA network (built in 10 years) was fitted with 16 of the 66 antennas needed, enough to "start the first scientific observations ," the Southern European Observatory. , Chile's Paranal Observatory management unit, announced. The 16th antenna has a diameter of 12m, weighs nearly 100 tons.
Astronomers around the world have offered nearly 1,000 proposals related to ALMA's first scientific observations.
After completion in 2013, ALMA will be used to study the origins of planets, stars, galaxies and the universe with 10 times the image resolution of the Hubble telescope. The total investment of the project is 600 million USD.
