Hubble Chases a Small Stellar Galaxy in the Hunting Dog

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Dec. 22, 2016

On a clear evening in April of 1789, the renowned astronomer William Herschel continued his unrelenting survey of the night sky, hunting for new cosmic objects — and found cause to celebrate! He spotted this bright spiral galaxy, named NGC 4707, lurking in the constellation of Canes Venatici or The Hunting Dog. NGC 4707 lies roughly 22 million light-years from Earth.

NGC stands for "New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars."

Over two centuries later, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is able to "chase down" and view the same galaxy in far greater detail than Herschel could, allowing us to appreciate the intricacies and characteristics of NGC 4707 as never before. This striking image comprises observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), one of a handful of high-resolution instruments currently aboard the space telescope.

Herschel himself reportedly described NGC 4707 as a “small, stellar” galaxy; while it is classified as a spiral (type Sm), its overall shape, center, and spiral arms are very loose and undefined, and its central bulge is either very small or non-existent. It instead appears as a rough sprinkling of stars and bright flashes of blue on a dark canvas.

The blue smudges seen across the frame highlight regions of recent or ongoing star formation, with newborn stars glowing in bright, intense shades of cyan and turquoise.

For images and more information about Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Image Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA/Text Credits: European Space Agency/NASA/Karl Hille.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Titan's Mystery Clouds and Pandora Up Close

NASA - Cassini International logo.

Dec. 22, 2016

This comparison of two views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, taken fairly close together in time, illustrates a peculiar mystery:  Why would clouds on Saturn's moon Titan be visible in some images, but not in others?

In the top view, a near-infrared image from Cassini's imaging cameras, the skies above Saturn's moon Titan look relatively cloud free. But in the bottom view, at longer infrared wavelengths, Cassini sees a large field of bright clouds. Even though these views were taken at different wavelengths, researchers would expect at least a hint of the clouds to show up in the upper image. Thus they have been trying to understand what's behind the difference.

As northern summer approaches on Titan, atmospheric models have predicted that clouds will become more common at high northern latitudes, similar to what was observed at high southern latitudes during Titan's late southern summer in 2004. Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) and Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) teams have been observing Titan to document changes in weather patterns as the seasons change, and there is particular interest in following the onset of clouds in the north polar region where Titan's lakes and seas are concentrated.

Cassini's "T120" and "T121" flybys of Titan, on June 7 and July 25, 2016, respectively, provided views of high northern latitudes over extended time periods -- more than 24 hours during both flybys. Intriguingly, the ISS and VIMS observations appear strikingly different from each other. In the ISS observations (monochrome image at top), surface features are easily identifiable and only a few small, isolated clouds were detected. In contrast, the VIMS observations (color image at bottom) suggest widespread cloud cover during both flybys. The observations were made over the same time period, so differences in illumination geometry or changes in the clouds themselves are unlikely to be the cause for the apparent discrepancy: VIMS shows persistent atmospheric features over the entire observation period and ISS consistently detects surface features with just a few localized clouds.

The answer to what could be causing the discrepancy appears to lie with Titan's hazy atmosphere, which is much easier to see through at the longer infrared wavelengths that VIMS is sensitive to (up to 5 microns) than at the shorter, near-infrared wavelength used by ISS to image Titan's surface and lower atmosphere (0.94 microns). High, thin cirrus clouds that are optically thicker than the atmospheric haze at longer wavelengths, but optically thinner than the haze at the shorter wavelength of the ISS observations, could be detected by VIMS and simultaneously lost in the haze to ISS -- similar to trying to see a thin cloud layer on a hazy day on Earth. This phenomenon has not been seen again since July 2016, but Cassini has several more opportunities to observe Titan over the last months of the mission in 2017, and scientists will be watching to see if and how the weather changes.

These two images were taken as part of the T120 flyby on June 7 (VIMS) and 8 (ISS), 2016. The distance to Titan was about 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers) for the VIMS image and about 398,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) for the ISS image. The VIMS image has been processed to enhance the visibility of the clouds; in this false-color view, clouds appear nearly white, atmospheric haze is pink, and surface areas would appear green.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.

Pandora Up Close

This image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft is one of the highest-resolution views ever taken of Saturn's moon Pandora. Pandora (52 miles, 84 kilometers) across orbits Saturn just outside the narrow F ring.

The spacecraft captured the image during its closest-ever flyby of Pandora on Dec. 18, 2016, during the third of its grazing passes by the outer edges of Saturn's main rings. (For Cassini's closest view prior to this flyby, see PIA07632, which is also in color.)

The image was taken in green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 25,200 miles (40,500 kilometers) from Pandora. Image scale is 787 feet (240 meters) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Related link:

PIA07632: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07632

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org and ESA's website http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images, Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

China launches TanSat carbon dioxide monitoring spacecraft

CASC - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation logo.

Dec. 21, 2016

Long March 2D launches TanSat carbon dioxide monitoring spacecraft

 China Launches Satellite to Monitor Global Carbon Emissions

China launched its first minisatellite dedicated to the carbon dioxide detection and monitoring at 15:22 UTC on December 22 using a Long March-2D (Chang Zheng-2D) launch vehicle. Launch of TanSat occurred from the LC43/603 launch complex of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

TanSat spacecraft

The main objective of the TanSat mission is to retrieve the atmosphere column-averaged CO2 dry air mole fraction with precisions of 1% (4 ppm) on national and global scales. The scientific goal of the project is to improve the understanding on the global CO2 distribution and its contribution to the climate change, and also to monitor the CO2 variation on seasonal time scales.

For more information about China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), visit: http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: CASC/News.cn/CCTV+/Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Weekly Recap From the Expedition Lead Scientist, week of Dec. 12, 2016

ISS - Expedition 50 Mission patch.

Dec. 21, 2016

(Highlights: Week of Dec. 12, 2016) - Crew members on the International Space Station installed a new device to help regulate temperature and an investigation created by aspiring scientists still in high school.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough installed the Phase Change Heat Exchanger Project (Phase Change HX) to begin an investigation into ways to maintain safe temperatures in space. The lack of atmosphere or protection from the sun’s heat makes regulating temperature in space difficult. Phase-change material heat exchangers can help by freezing or thawing a material to maintain critical temperatures inside a spacecraft, protecting crew members and equipment. A wax-based exchanger has been used in the past, but this water-based version has significantly better energy storage and has not been tested in space. By using materials that can change phase from liquid to vapor, depending on the temperature, facilities can more easily move heat into areas that must be warmed by removing heat from areas that much be cooled. This new hardware introduces the capability by supplying sub-zero fluid temperatures to investigations that need them. These tests will improve the design of this style of exchanger on Earth, where it is used as a low-energy method to control temperatures in chemical plants and power plants.

Image above: The Japanese HTV-6 cargo vehicle is seen during final approach to the International Space Station before it is captured by the remote Canadarm 2. HTV-6 launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on Friday, Dec. 9, and arrived at the station on Tuesday, Dec. 13. The vehicle was loaded with more than 4.5 tons of supplies, water, spare parts and experiment hardware. Image Credit: NASA.

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet installed the NanoRacks-CUBERIDER-1 (NanoRacks-CR-1) module into one of the NanoRacks platforms – a shoebox-sized section of one of the larger racks that stores science experiments on the space station. This educational module runs a computer code written by high school students to conduct tests and record data about the microgravity environment. This particular investigation monitors for radiation and any movement on station using a small camera viewing the inside of the orbiting laboratory. The investigation is one of many ways the space station program engages students, encouraging studies in the science, technology engineering and math fields as future scientists devise their own experiments and experience space science first hand

Kimbrough installed nine radiation detectors throughout the Japanese Pressurized Module and Japanese Experiment Logistics Module as part of the Area Passive Dosimeter for Life-Science Experiments in Space (Area PADLES) investigation. The JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) dosimeters continuously monitor the radiation dose aboard the space station. Radiation exposure can have significant effects on living organisms, including the crew and biological investigations being done on the space station in the Japanese Experiment Module, Kibo. Measuring radiation in space is essential to protecting astronauts, developing monitors and shielding for life sciences experiments in space, and designing wall thicknesses for future space vehicles. On Earth, the dosimetry technique measures radiation doses for people working around high-energy accelerators -- used with high-speed microscopes to image cancer cells.

Image above: NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson performs an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) exam. Researchers believe that the measurement of visual, vascular and central nervous system changes over the course of this experiment and during the subsequent post-flight recovery will assist in the development of countermeasures, clinical monitoring strategies, and clinical practice guidelines. Image Credit: NASA.

Pesquet began four tests for the Aquaporin Inside Membrane Testing in Space (AquaMembrane) investigation which looks into a potential new method for water recovery on space vehicles. As one of the basic needs for survival, recovering water from moisture in the cabin atmosphere and filtering waste water –- sweat and urine -- for reuse is an important part of the station’s life support system. This ESA study collects and treats waste water in space that will be transported back to Earth for analysis. The investigation may lead to improved efficiency for reclaiming water in space, reducing the frequency for resupply from Earth and impact life support systems for future long-duration exploration missions beyond our orbit. The AquaMembrane is developed using a technology called forward osmosis, which is also being tested to desalinate ocean water for use on Earth.

Crew members conducted other human research investigations this week, including Biochem Profile, Repository, Habitability, ESA-Active-Dosimeters, Fine Motor Skills, Lighting Effects, Multi-Omics, Neuromapping, Dose Tracker and Space Headaches.

Progress also was made on other investigations and facilities this week, including Veg-03, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02), ISS Ham, ACE-T-1, Group Combustion, JAXA ELF, Packed Bed Reactor Experiment (PBRE),  Aerosol Samplers, Aquapad, ISS External Leak Locator, J-SSOD, Personal CO2 Monitors, PS-TEPC, Radi-N2, RTcMISS, Water Monitoring Suite, and Biolab.

Related links:

Phase Change Heat Exchanger Project (Phase Change HX): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2077.html

NanoRacks-CUBERIDER-1 (NanoRacks-CR-1): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2464.html

Life-Science Experiments in Space (Area PADLES): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/901.html

Aquaporin Inside Membrane Testing in Space (AquaMembrane): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2156.html

Biochem Profile: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1008.html

Repository: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/981.html

Habitability: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1772.html

ESA-Active-Dosimeters: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2132.html

Fine Motor Skills: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1767.html

Lighting Effects: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2279.html

Multi-Omics: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1949.html

Neuromapping: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1007.html

Dose Tracker: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1933.html

Space Headaches: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/181.html

Veg-03: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1294.html

(AMS-02), ISS Ham: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/742.html

ISS Ham: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/346.html

ACE-T-1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2033.html

Group Combustion: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1077.html

JAXA ELF: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1999.html

Packed Bed Reactor Experiment (PBRE): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1111.html

Aerosol Samplers: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2300.html

Aquapad: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2357.html

ISS External Leak Locator: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1817.html

J-SSOD: http://iss.jaxa.jp/en/kiboexp/jssod/

Personal CO2 Monitors: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2101.html

PS-TEPC: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1079.html

RTcMISS: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2046.html

Water Monitoring Suite: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2109.html

Biolab: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Columbus/Biolab

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/John Love, Acting Lead Increment Scientist Expeditions 49 & 50/Kristine Rainey.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Ariane 5’s seventh launch this year

ARIANESPACE - Ariane 5 ECA / Flight VA234 Mission poster.


21 December 2016

Ariane 5 liftoff

An Ariane 5 (ECA configuration) lifted off this evening to deliver two telecom satellites, Star One-D1 and JCSat-15, into their planned orbits.

Arianespace announced liftoff at 20:30 GMT (17:30 local time, 21:30 CET) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana for a dual payload mission lasting about 43 minutes.

Liftoff of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 with Star One D1 and JCSAT-15

Star One-D1, with a mass of 6433 kg at liftoff, was the first satellite to be released, about 29 minutes into the mission. The 3400 kg JCSat-15 was released 14 minutes later.

Star One-D1, owned by Embratel Star One, will handle broadcasting, broadband, Internet access and other digital applications over Brazil, Latin America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Star One D1 satellite

JCSat-15, owned by SKY Perfect JSat, will offer a range of communications services for Japan, including broadcasting, data transfer, and maritime and aeronautical applications for the Oceania and Indian Ocean regions.

Both satellites are designed to last more than 15 years.

JCSat-15 satellite

The payload mass for this launch was 10 722 kg. The satellites totalled about 9833 kg, with payload adapters and carrying structures making up the rest.

Flight VA234 was the 90th Ariane 5 launch, and the seventh this year.

For more information about ARIANESPACE, visit: http://www.arianespace.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/ARIANESPACE.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

The BASE antiprotons celebrate their first birthday

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

Dec. 21, 2016

Image above: The BASE experiment zone with the antiproton transfer line and the superconducting magnet. The screens show the signals from single antiprotons stored in the BASE measurement traps. (Image: Stefan Sellner/CERN).

The Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) at the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) facility at CERN has managed to keep a bunch of antiprotons trapped in its reservoir for more than one year now. The shot of antiprotons – the antimatter companions of protons – was loaded into the experiment’s reservoir trap on 12 November 2015 and the collaboration is still working with the same particles. This sets a number of records: no-one has previously managed to keep antimatter trapped for such a long period and, to the best of our knowledge, no other charged particles have been consistently confined for this long.

The BASE experiment is devoted to the precise comparison of the properties of protons and antiprotons: any discrepancy detected would hint at new physics beyond the Standard Model.

BASE conducts its high-precision experiments on one antiproton at a time, so it does not need a continuous beam of antiprotons. One shot of antiprotons from the AD facility contains enough antiprotons for the needs of BASE. “The antiproton reservoir enables us to run autonomously for months, which is especially useful in the winter shutdown period when there is no beam available from the AD,” says Stefan Ulmer, spokesperson for the BASE collaboration.

The reservoir trap is inside a cylinder with a volume of 1.2 litres. The particles are trapped by two overlying magnetic and electric fields, which keep the particles in a small volume in the centre of the trap. On one side of the trap there is a metal window, thin enough to allow the antiprotons to pass through but strong enough to ensure complete insulation from the outside. All the other sides of the trap are made from solid copper. The cylinder is then cooled to about 6 K (-267 °C) with liquid helium, so that an almost perfect vacuum is created. Indeed, if an antiproton meets a matter particle, it will be annihilated and disappear. The BASE team must therefore ensure that there are virtually no residual gas particles left in the reservoir. “Given that we have not observed any antiproton disappearance yet,” says Christian Smorra, a research fellow on the BASE collaboration, “we can say that there are less than three matter particles left per cubic centimetre.”

BASE’s reservoir trap has another unique characteristic. Antiparticles are the rarest species of particles in our universe, as they are only created in high-energy particle collisions or in a nuclear decay. Proton–antiproton symmetry is always extremely unbalanced towards protons. A reservoir of hundreds of antiprotons all confined in a small space in an almost perfect vacuum represents a significant local inversion of this asymmetry. “What is unique about BASE is that we can trap the particles for as long as we want to,” says Stefan Sellner, a post-doc researcher at BASE. “Also, our antiprotons are the coldest antimatter particles ever prepared, at temperatures very close to absolute zero,” he remarks.

At the end of the year, the BASE experiment will undergo a period of machine maintenance and development, which means that the antiprotons will be freed from the reservoir trap in which they have cohabited for over a year.

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 22 Member States.

Related links:

BASE experiment: http://home.cern/about/experiments/base

Antimatter at CERN: http://home.cern/topics/antimatter/antimatter-cern

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: http://home.cern/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/Stefania Pandolfi.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

First Light for Band 5 at ALMA

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

21 December 2016

New receivers improve ALMA’s ability to search for water in the Universe

 The merging galaxy system Arp 220 from ALMA and Hubble

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile has begun observing in a new range of the electromagnetic spectrum. This has been made possible thanks to new receivers installed at the telescope’s antennas, which can detect radio waves with wavelengths from 1.4 to 1.8 millimetres — a range previously untapped by ALMA. This upgrade allows astronomers to detect faint signals of water in the nearby Universe.

ALMA observes radio waves from the Universe, at the low-energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum. With the newly installed Band 5 receivers, ALMA has now opened its eyes to a whole new section of this radio spectrum, creating exciting new observational possibilities.

The European ALMA Programme Scientist, Leonardo Testi, explains the significance: “The new receivers will make it much easier to detect water, a prerequisite for life as we know it, in our Solar System and in more distant regions of our galaxy and beyond. They will also allow ALMA to search for ionised carbon in the primordial Universe.”

Band 5 ALMA receiver

It is ALMA’s unique location, 5000 metres up on the barren Chajnantor plateau in Chile, that makes such an observation possible in the first place. As water is also present in Earth’s atmosphere, observatories in less elevated and less arid environments have much more difficulty identifying the origin of the emission coming from space. ALMA’s great sensitivity and high angular resolution mean that even faint signals of water in the local Universe can now be imaged at this wavelength [1].

The Band 5 receiver, which was developed by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) at Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has already been tested at the APEX telescope in the SEPIA instrument. These observations were also vital to help select suitable targets for the first receiver tests with ALMA.

The first production receivers were built and delivered to ALMA in the first half of 2015 by a consortium consisting of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) and GARD in partnership with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which contributed the local oscillator to the project. The receivers are now installed and being prepared for use by the community of astronomers.

One of the Band 5 receivers for ALMA

To test the newly installed receivers observations were made of several objects including the colliding galaxies Arp 220, a massive region of star formation close to the centre of the Milky Way, and also a dusty red supergiant star approaching the supernova explosion that will end its life [2].

To process the data and check its quality, astronomers, along with technical specialists from ESO and the European ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) network, gathered at the Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden, for a "Band 5 Busy Week" hosted by the Nordic ARC node [3]. The final results have just been made freely available to the astronomical community worldwide.

Team member Robert Laing at ESO is optimistic about the prospects for ALMA Band 5 observations: “It's very exciting to see these first results from ALMA Band 5 using a limited set of antennas. In the future, the high sensitivity and angular resolution of the full ALMA array will allow us to make detailed studies of water in a wide range of objects including forming and evolved stars, the interstellar medium and regions close to supermassive black holes.”

One of the Band 5 receivers for ALMA

Notes:

[1] A key spectral signature of water lies in this expanded range — at a wavelength of 1.64 millimetres.

[2] The observations were performed and made possible by the ALMA Extension of Capabilities team in Chile.

[3] The ESO Band 5 Science Verification team includes: Elizabeth Humphreys, Tony Mroczkowski, Robert Laing, Katharina Immer, Hau-Yu (Baobab) Liu, Andy Biggs, Gianni Marconi and Leonardo Testi. The team working on processing the data included: Tobia Carozzi, Simon Casey, Sabine König, Ana Lopez-Sepulcre, Matthias Maercker, Iván Martí-Vidal, Lydia Moser, Sebastien Muller, Anita Richards, Daniel Tafoya and Wouter Vlemmings.

More information:

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

Photos of ALMA: https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/alma/

ALMA: http://eso.org/alma

Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD): http://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/rss/research/research-groups/Pages/Advanced-receiver-development.aspx

Onsala Space Observatory: http://www.chalmers.se/en/centres/oso/Pages/default.aspx

APEX telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/apex/

SEPIA instrument: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1543/

Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA): http://nova-astronomy.nl/

National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO): http://www.nrao.edu/

European ALMA Regional Centre (ARC): https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma/arc.html

Nordic ARC node: http://www.nordic-alma.se/

Images, Text, Credits: Credits: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/N. Tabilo/NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team(STScI/AURA)/Onsala Space Observatory/Alexey Pavolotsky/B. Billade.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch