Chile: For Sky Lovers, A visit to the largest radio telescope, ALMA

ALMA is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array located in Northern Chile. Situated on the thin, dry air of the Atacama desert, 5000 meters above sea level, this is the ideal place to set up the world's largest array of Radio Telescopes. Although located in Chile it is a worldwide collaboration with three organisations leading the way - European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Europe), U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) (USA) and National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) (Japan).

Inside ALMA here is me after watching a 15 minute video of how ALMA came into existence. Yes, indeed looking for cosmic origins. ALMA antennas provide a clearer view of the space especially the colder regions of the universe. Various worldwide organisations have time slot allocated for the antennas. The most interesting fact is that these antennas looks for Exo-Planets in our galaxy as well as other galaxies whilst mapping them in greater depth.

Just a few shots of the ALMA Antenna Arrays at 5000 meters above sea level.

This is the Master Control Room in the OSF. And it was such a wonderful experience to be amongst a few lucky astronomers, scientists and engineers looking at the space, controlling the antennas orientation and collecting gigantic amount of data.