Chilean astronomer publishes first ALMA findings

BBC : Cinthya Herrera, a doctoral student from Chile, is lead author on the first science paper to be based on observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope. In their paper published last month in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, Herrera and coworkers discuss their investigation into star-forming clusters that result from the merger of a pair of spiral galaxies known as the Antennae Galaxies, which lie about 70 million light-years away. The 27-year-old student, who is currently at the Institute of Space Astrophysics in Paris, eventually intends to return to Chile, where the telescope is based. Although not yet finished, ALMAâmdash;supported by an international partnership among Chile and countries in North America, Europe, and East Asiaâmdash;currently has 22 antennas in place, with a total of 66 planned for the next few years. Once ALMA is completely up and running, astronomers expect to be able to see very distant objects in the early universe, including some of the first structures to form more than 13 billion years ago, writes Jonathan Amos for the BBC.