The ALMA radio telescope, the largest in the world, located 5,000 meters above sea level in the Atacama Desert (Chile), celebrated its tenth anniversary.
It revealed numerous sky secrets during this time, such as the first photograph of a black hole.
On a dry, brown plateau surrounded by rocky peaks, dozens of white, metallic giants punctuate the landscape, moving their huge, circular heads in different directions across the sky.
They are the 66 antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the largest telescope in the world.
In its first decade of observations, ALMA has, for example, expanded our knowledge of the formation of new planets, the origin of life elsewhere in the universe, and supermassive black holes.
“The antennas can be placed in different positions, so we can make the telescope larger or more compact depending on scientific needs.”
“If we move them away from each other, we get more detail but less amplitude in the image, and vice versa, like a camera zoom,” the observatory’s communications coordinator, Nicolás Lira, told EFE news agency.
The signals from the antennas that make up ALMA are assembled by a supercomputer that applies mathematical models to obtain a single combined image of all the antennas.
ALMA is the result of the joint efforts of some twenty countries, including the United States, Europe, Japan, and Chile, a collaboration among several significant observatories worldwide that has led to unique astronomical discoveries.
“ALMA often collaborates with other observatories around the world, combining their signals into a giant telescope the size of Earth,” explained Elizabeth Humphreys, head of ALMA’s science division.
This is how, for example, the first-ever photo of a black hole was taken, by combining signals from different observatories on Earth and creating the equivalent of a telescope thousands of kilometers in diameter – using the same technique ALMA uses to combine signals from its antennas, called interferometry.
Observing a black hole from Earth “is like looking at a conventional hole in Chile from Spain,” explains Hugo Messias, one of the ALMA astronomers.
“Without international collaboration, reaching this milestone would have been impossible,” he added.
ALMA was a revolution for astronomy a decade ago.
Still, the scientific community is already working on larger telescopes that will push the boundaries of knowledge that the Chilean observatory has been able to advance.
“Science is not black and white; it is constantly advancing. There is always something beyond our knowledge, and human curiosity is infinite. With ALMA, human curiosity doesn’t stop,” Lira said.
However, ALMA is preparing for a significant overhaul of its systems in 2030.
The supercomputer and several components of the antennas will be replaced to speed up the observatory’s work and increase the sharpness of the data it collects.
Humphreys said that one of the Chilean observatory’s strengths is its ability to detect chemical constituents in the universe, and the equipment upgrade will enhance that potential.
“We want to find more information about the chemistry of life, about which of the systems we see in space might contain some form of life,” she affirmed.
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