The Atacama Large Millimeter Array

What will be the largest submillimetre radio telescope in the world

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array will be inaugurated in 2011 at Llano de Chajnantor, a high plateau in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The array should be usable for scientific purposes before its completion, starting in 2007.

The creation of the array is the result of collaboration between Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan and Chile. The National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics is responsible for Canada’s participation in the radio telescope.

The array consists of 62 parabolic antennas measuring 12 metres across and spread out over 14 kilometres in the desert. They will operate together to simulate a single radio telescope with a diameter of 14 kilometres. The antennas will operate at wavelengths between 0.00035 and 10 millimetres: that is, from submillimetre wavelengths to the beginning of the microwave range.

Canada will provide 64 ultra-sensitive receptors for the 3-millimetre wavelength range, as well as the image processing software for the radio telescope.

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array will be used to study the formation of planets, stars, distant galaxies, galaxy clusters and interstellar matter.