The world's tallest observatory opens

TAO Observatory is located on a 5,640 m high mountain peak, equipped with a 6.5 m diameter telescope to help observe the universe with infrared rays.

The University of Tokyo's Atacama Observatory, or TAO , officially opened, becoming the highest observatory on earth, Space reported on May 1. This work was conceptualized 26 years ago with the goal of studying the evolution of galaxies and exoplanets. The project is located on the 5,640 m high peak of Cerro Chajnantor mountain in the Chilean Andes, surpassing the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope system at an altitude of 5,050 m.

The University of Tokyo's Atacama Observatory (TAO) is built atop a mountain in the Atacama Desert. (Photo: Atacama Observatory Project of the University of Tokyo).

Cerro Chajnantor means "place of departure" in the Kunza language of the indigenous Likan Antai community. The region's high altitude, thin air and year-round arid climate make it dangerous for humans, but it is an ideal location for infrared telescopes like TAO because the precision of the observations requires requires low humidity - a factor that helps the Earth's atmosphere be transparent at infrared wavelengths.

TAO's 6.5m diameter telescope includes two scientific instruments designed to observe the universe using infrared rays - electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than microwaves.

1. The first instrument, SWIMS , will image galaxies from the early universe to understand how they coalesced from primordial dust and gas. Many details of this process are still unclear, despite decades of research by scientists.
2. The second instrument , MIMIZUKU , will study the primordial dust disks that helped stars and galaxies form.

"The better the astronomical observations of real objects, the more accurately we can reproduce what we see with experiments on Earth ," said Riko Senoo, a graduate student at the University of Tokyo.

"I hope the next generation of astronomers will use TAO and other space and ground telescopes to make unexpected discoveries that challenge current understanding and explain the unknown. explainable" , Masahiro Konishi, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, shared.