Unlocking the Origins of the Cosmos
**VIDEO**
Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel
Chile’s Atacama Desert, home of the massive Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescopes, is a place on Earth that resembles Mars most closely.
It’s a very dry place with a pristine air quality, having no atmospheric distortions of heat or artificial light for cosmic viewing. It also has the least amount of moisture and rainfall found anywhere on the planet.
Made up of 66 massive antennas set high atop a plateau in the Atacama, ALMA ranks alongside Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider and France’s International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor as one of humanity’s most massive, international scientific and collaborative undertakings.
The $1.4 billion project– a culmination of decades of scientific advances in astronomy and astrophysics in the works since 1999– finally began its first scientific observations in 2011.
The sophisticated telescope system uses radio frequencies to detect millimeter energy wavelengths instead of visible light, looking back in time through billions of light years to uncover the make-up of massive dust clouds, gases, and galaxies. In time, scientists believe the project will revolutionize our understanding of the origins of our own solar system, stars, and galaxy.
What’s in your universe?
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