After a large telescope is constructed, engineers and astronomers often have to spend months or years tinkering before it finally begins contributing to science in earnest.

But last year, with just one quarter of its construction completed, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array radio telescope—the largest, highest-altitude and most expensive ground-based observatory yet—turned its dishy ears to the skies and began to listen. Already it has begun to sing out its discoveries.

Since astronomers began using the $1.3-billion international observatory—called ALMA for short—a year ago, it has revealed a "death spiral" of gas and dust unwinding around a dying red giant star, giving insight into what our sun's demise may look like. The array has provided a clear picture of a nearby planetary system that had eluded even Hubble. It has also detected sugar molecules floating in gas surrounding a star as well as markers for hundreds of other molecules in space—clues that astrophysicists astrochemists are working furiously to decipher.

And those discoveries are just from ALMA's intentional observations. As scientists test the observatory's ever-growing collection of antennas by pointing them at well-studied objects in space, ALMA is happening on details no other instrument has ever captured. Astronomers, for instance, recently tested the array by aiming it at the Antennae Galaxies, a pair of colliding galaxies that scientists have been studying since 1785, and saw with superlative detail its stellar-nurseries, where billions of new stars are being born. Another test found the poisonous molecule ethyl cyanide floating in a star-forming region in the constellation Orion.

"We are discovering things completely by accident," says Violette Impellizzeri, an astronomer on the observatory's Commissioning Team. "It's to the point that we have to be very careful what we look at," because they are stumbling on discoveries that other scientists were hoping for telescope time to investigate.

The observatory's sensitivity will only improve as construction brings more antennas to its array. Unlike optical telescopes, whose power comes from mirrors and lenses gathering light within a single instrument, modern radio telescopes consist of herds of saucers aimed in unison at a patch of sky. The dishes can be moved around in relationship to one another to get the best angle on a distant domain.  The weak waves detected by each of the dishes are digitally combined to create one strong signal, resulting in a much higher resolution than a single large dish could achieve.

And their aim is exact, says Stefano Stanghellini, antenna project manager for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which is contributing 25 of ALMA's antennas. A person shooting a gun with the same accuracy would put a bullet through a two-euro coin at a distance of 10 kilometers, he says.

With this exceptional precision and sensitivity, ALMA will look into the darkest and coldest corners of our universe—places where optical telescopes can only grope. For example, a dark cloud surrounding a star may barely be perceived optically, but ALMA can image it in detail, and also determine its composition.

When ALMA first became available to investigators in October 2011, just 16 of its slated 66 antennas were operational, but it already constituted the world's most powerful radio telescope—a distinction that had more than 1,000 scientists salivating for time with it. A lucky 10 percent were selected for ALMA's first research cycle; the second cycle begins in January, with double the number of antennas.

5 Comments

1. 1. Acoyauh2 03:12 PM 10/30/12

   "In the meantime, astronomers will make due with ALMA". It's an idiom, but correct spelling is 'make do'.
   Also, "including a radio telescope with a square kilometer surface area to be located in South Africa or Australia. That project could be complete by 2024". I understand the decision has already been made to spread the antennas in both countries. Need to double check, though.
   
   Awesome gizmo there, can't wait to see what it does when working full steam, full time. There's material for daily astronomical and astrophisical news there. Yay!

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2. 2. jtdwyer in reply to Acoyauh2 07:48 PM 10/30/12

   Yes, I'm pretty sure the planned large telescope will be split between both the South Africa & Australian sites - I think with large dishes at one and smaller ones at the other. As I understand, communicating computer systems will provide a combined, singular image.
   
   P.S. re. "astrophisical", I tink its more correctly 'astrophysical' - :o)

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3. 3. pinetree 03:20 AM 10/31/12

   If the South African and Australian signals will be synchronized and synthesized, wouldn't that give them a virtual aperture of half the diameter of the earth? At such extreme range between antenna farms wouldn't pointing them at the same celestial co-ordinates be a problem? Or could some kind time skew correction be made for observations not made simultaneously (given that it is unlikely they would be tracking fast moving entities (in degrees per eon)?

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4. 4. magonzacha 08:48 AM 11/2/12

   Yes South Africa and Australia will be the future but the present will be in Chile and by the time they finish the other arrays a lot of wonders will be discover by the one in Chile.
   

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5. 5. ScienceMethod 02:43 PM 11/9/12

   Three Cheers for ALMA. Generating amazing new observations even before its is finished !
   
   Regarding the joint South African and Australian Square Kilometer Array, 2/3rds of the instrument will be in SA,
   1/3rd in Oz. and here's an article explaining the expected wavelengths to be used for each --
   
   http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/ska-super-telescope-to-be-built-in-australia-south-africa/story-fn5fsgyc-1226367470476

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