ALMA Green Light

A powerful tool for peering at the early universe got the go-ahead on 25 February, when the North American and European partners signed an agreement to jointly build and run the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. The partners, represented by Rita Colwell and Catherine Cesarsky directors, respectively, of NSF and the European Southern Observatory, will split the $620 million tab.

An interferometer consisting of 64 dishes, each 12 meters across, ALMA will provide an unprecedented view of the distant, highly redshifted early universe. It will be used to study the formation of structures from organic molecules to planets, stars, galaxies, and galaxy clusters.

“ALMA heralds a breakthrough in submillimeter and millimeter astronomy, allowing some of the most penetrating studies of the universe ever made,” says Piet van der Kruit, director of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and president of the ESO council. “It is safe to predict that there will be exciting scientific surprises when ALMA enters into operation.”

ALMA will be built at an elevation of 5000 meters in the Atacama desert in the Chilean Andes. Construction is slated to be completed by 2011.