Alma the world's most complex ground-based Observatory has just opened
for business the telescope is still being built and its capabilities will
continue to grow over the coming year but even at this early stage its images
reveal a view of the universe that is invisible to normal telescopes thousands
of scientists from around the world have competed to be among the first to use
Alma with it they hope to explore some of the darkest coldest service and most
hidden secrets of the cosmos this is the esocast
cutting-edge science and life behind the scenes of ESO the European Southern
Observatory exploring the ultimate frontier with our host dr. J aka dr. Joe
Liske hello and welcome to the esocast in this episode we'll get the latest
news from Alma the Atacama Large millimeter/submillimeter Array as it
begins its first science observations and will reveal the first public image
from Alma a dramatic view of galaxies that are undergoing a cosmic collision
we'll find out how astronomers around the world have been eagerly waiting to
get their hands on this revolutionary telescope and discover why this is only
the beginning for the observatory
so far only around a third of our moves 66 antennas have been installed at the
observatory site on the Chajnantor plateau 5,000 metres up in the Chilean
Andes Mountains and yet even before it's completed Alma is already the most
powerful telescope of its kind Alma observes the universe in light with
millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths roughly 1,000 times longer than visible
light wavelengths using these longer wavelengths allows astronomers to study
extremely cold objects in space which appear dark through normal telescopes in
addition there are also very useful for peering inside dense clouds of cosmic
dust and for observing very distant objects in the early universe
Alma is radically different from visible light and infrared telescopes as well as
looking at these longer wavelengths of light it works in a totally different
way instead of being one big telescope Alma uses an array of antennas spread
out over distances of up to 16 kilometres
the views from each antenna are combined into one image by one of the world's
fastest special-purpose supercomputers the Alma correlator which can perform 17
quadrillion operations per second because of this pictures from Alma were
quite unlike more familiar pictures of the cosmos
the Alma team has been busy testing the observatory's systems over the past
months in preparation for the first round of scientific observations one
outcome of their test is the first image published from Alma this image was made
using only 12 antennas fewer than will be used for the first science
observations let alone the completed Observatory and spaced much closer
together as well both of these factors make the new image just a taster of what
is to come the antennae galaxies are a pair of colliding galaxies with
dramatically distorted shapes while visible light shows us the stars in the
galaxies Alma's view reveals the clouds of dense cold gas from which new stars
form massive concentrations of gas are found not only in the hearts of the two
galaxies but also in the chaotic region where they are colliding here the total
amount of gas is billions of times the mass of our Sun a rich reservoir of
material for future generations of stars
observations like these will be vital in helping us understand how galaxy
collisions can trigger the birth of new stars this is just one example of how
Alma reveals parts of the universe that cannot be seen with visible light and
infrared telescopes over the coming year the sharpness speed and quality of its
observations will increase dramatically as more antennas become available and
the array grows in size but even with only part of the array in operation this
is already the best submillimetre wavelength image ever made of the
antennae galaxies Alma could accept only about a hundred or so projects for this
first nine-month round of observations nevertheless over the last few months
astronomers from around the world have submitted over 900 applications to use
it a record level of interest the successful projects were chosen based on
their scientific merit their regional diversity and also their relevance to
our most major science goals let's hear from some of the astronomers who are
planning to use Alma and why they're so excited about this new telescope one of
the main reasons were building Alma is to study the birth of the solar system
in essence and the solar system was formed 4 and 1/2 billion years ago and
we'd like to understand how other solar systems have come into being now we've
got the scale or the sensitivity and the resolution to detail studies of their
systems like ours on forming a nearby in our galaxy I look at molecular clouds in
nearby galaxies molecular clouds are where stars form the clouds are made up
of very cold gas and studying the physical conditions in these clouds
helps us to understand the star formation process currently we can study
molecular clouds only for very nearby galaxies out to about 30 million light
years with armor we'll be able to study individual clouds and galaxies much much
further out Alma is going to be a very important
instrument teaches about the physics that go on around the black hole of the
center of the Milky Way galaxy this is because all the intervening dust can
obscure some of the shorter wavelength observations so the very high angular
resolutions and into the submillimetre band that the Alma telescope will be
able to observe at will be able to look at the fine scale structural detail
around black hole well we know of some galaxies that exist in the faraway
universe that are only seen in certain wavelengths so for example I we know
about radio galaxies that are not observed in any other wavelength even
with the most powerful telescopes and we have been waiting for all of them to
give us the possibility to understand what these galaxies are and what what is
happening in them
building work by almost partner organizations from Europe North America
and East Asia will continue during the first science observations by 2013 the
observatory will be complete and will feature 66 antennas spread out over
distances of up to 16 kilometres by unfolding its enormous observational
potential Alma will revolutionize many areas of astronomy and will provide us
with profound insights into the universe this is dr j signing off for the esocast
join us again next time for another cosmic adventure
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