Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) Telescope

About Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) Telescope:

• It is a state-of-the-art telescope that studies celestial objects at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths.
• They can penetrate through dust clouds and help astronomers examine dim and distant galaxies and stars out there.
• It also has extraordinary sensitivity, which allows it to detect even extremely faint radio signals.
• The telescope consists of 66 high-precision antennas, spread over a distance of up to 16 km.
• It is operated under a partnership between the United States, and 16 countries in Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Chile.
• The radio telescope was designed, planned and constructed by the US’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

What are some of the notable discoveries made by ALMA?

• It had observed the detailed images of the protoplanetary disc surrounding HL Tauri which is a very young T Tauri star in the constellation Taurus, approximately 450 light years from Earth.
• It helped scientists observe a phenomenon known as the Einstein ring, which occurs when light from a galaxy or star passes by a massive object en route to the Earth, in extraordinary detail.