we are entering a golden age in
astronomy advances in technology are
giving astronomers unprecedented
capabilities allowing us to explore the
universe as never before we'll be able
to understand our future and what our
ultimate fate is going to be in the
universe
in the high desert of northern Chile an
international team of scientists and
engineers is on a quest to unlock the
secrets of the hidden universe they are
pushing the limits of technology to
build the most advanced Observatory on
earth in one of our planet's most
inhospitable places
known as Alma the Atacama Large
millimeter/submillimeter Array this
30-year project promises to open a new
window on the cosmos and redefine our
place among the stars whenever you build
something that opens up new
possibilities and then opens up the new
space of discovery and that is a
remarkable ability that Alma will
provide
as humans we're always asking questions
perhaps the most fundamental is where do
we come from
to answer we must venture into unknown
regions of the universe to its very edge
where the first galaxies are forming
deep within immense clouds of gas and
dust where stars are igniting and
organic molecules are slowly building
the ingredients of life and inside dusty
discs where young planets take shape
around their future Suns such alien
realms are separated from us by almost
unimaginable distance and time and are
shrouded in veils of dust and gas are
there other worlds where life has taken
hold how did they come to be today we
are on the verge of a giant leap in
understanding in one of our planet's
most unforgiving environments an
ambitious new telescope is poised to
revolutionize everything we know about
our cosmic origins
it is called Alma astronomers study what
they can observe for centuries that
meant stars planets and other visible
objects but the universe is deepest
secrets may lie in the darkness between
them empty space is a little bit of a
misnomer especially nowadays in modern
astronomy wherever we look with
telescopes we see something there's gas
there's dust there are stars and
whenever we look at a new unexplored
region of the electromagnetic spectrum
we find something different starlight
arrives in every color we can see but
this visible light is only a tiny sliver
of a vast electromagnetic spectrum that
encompasses every kind of light we know
of we've been able to explore just about
all of it but one part has been
especially tricky to observe a range
known as millimetre and submillimetre
wavelength light which represents half
of the light that reaches us from
distant space
peering into this cold dusty realm
requires a telescope that goes beyond
anything ever achieved in radio
astronomy because the light they observe
is so weak radio telescopes must be
built on a colossal scale they have
either a single massive collecting
surface or an array of smaller dishes
spread across a flat expanse combine
these individual antennas form a single
giant dish as large as the entire array
Alma is the most ambitious ground-based
telescope ever attempted the astronomers
design calls for 66 highly sensitive
antennas each costing over five million
dollars teams from North America Europe
and East Asia are sharing the cost of
the 1.3 billion dollar project each
region is responsible for its own
antenna design and construction the
international collaboration and
competition is drawing the world's top
scientists and engineers pushing the
limits of innovation Alma scientists
need more than cutting-edge technology
they need a site unlike any other in
ground-based astronomy
there were three conditions a place that
would be high and therefore very dry
that would be flat so that we could put
antennas in accessible the number of
high big flat sites in the world is very
limited and so the search for the oma
site began in New Mexico close to home
there was a place called the Aquarius
plateau in Utah which was pretty good
it's very high but it turns out it has
about five feet of snow on it all winter
long and can't move the antennas around
at all the site to end all sites at
least at the time for astronomy was
Hawaii we studied the possibility of
putting the Ray Allen Mauna Kea with the
other big telescopes and it just barely
could fit when we were asked why aren't
you looking at Chile and so we made a
trip to Chile
the high desert of northern Chile is
renowned for its clear skies
but the remote location presents huge
challenges despite them Chile remains
the team's last best hope on the day
that that we went looking for a place
Heraldo via diaries and I drove along
going to higher elevation heading up a
very narrow old sulphur mining road /
ruts around boulders bouncing our way up
we're having a good time and and we're
headed towards something that's that's
at least high enough to have flat ground
we walk and look out and it is just
unbelievable lo and behold here is this
enormous flat plain so really exciting I
mean we felt like real adventurer
you
the Atacama is the driest desert on
earth
some parts have never recorded a drop of
rain
what moisture there is typically
condenses on the towering peaks of the
Andes
millions of years of volcanic activity
have created perhaps the most unique
feature in the region the Chuck Nam tour
Plateau
this high-altitude plane stops the
moisture Laden air rising from the
Amazon basin
it's Mars like surface provides the
perfect terrain for cutting-edge radio
astronomy finding an ideal site is one
thing building the telescope in this
extreme environment is another the
project faces significant hurdles not
least if these challenges is this site
itself
the 16,500 foot-high array operations
site is the highest large-scale
construction site on earth it is also
one of the harshest temperatures
fluctuate from minus 20 to 55 degrees
Fahrenheit UV radiation is almost double
what it is at sea level
winds are often clocked at 75 miles per
hour the conditions affect both man and
machine the atmosphere is roughly half
what it is at sea level so you have half
the oxygen manpower tends to suffer from
oxygen deprivation they tend to be
lightheaded they tend to be nauseous and
there's more subject to injury or
accidents at that high site to deal with
these risks Alma's design calls for a
second lower elevation site the
Operations Support Facility at 9,500
feet
workers live here just below the 10,000
foot level at which high-altitude
sickness increasingly strikes
but altitude and weather aren't the only
dangers the Atacama Desert sits above a
fault line in the infamous Ring of Fire
that encircles the Pacific earthquakes
and landslides are common
just to the southeast of the observatory
an active volcano called laskhar looms
overhead
she sends an almost daily smoke signal
of warning into the sky the ash cloud
from an eruption could paralyze the
telescope for weeks
for the astronomers these dangers are a
calculated risk in their quest for new
science for the engineers they present
profound challenges
Alma's builders must find materials and
designs that deliver unprecedented
performance in this unforgiving
environment if they succeed this
international team will change astronomy
forever
in the quest to discover our cosmic
origins engineers are building the most
complex Observatory in history of utmost
importance are the antenna dishes
measuring 12 meters across a main Alma
dish is the business end of a highly
sensitive instrument to maintain its
precise shape the dish needs to be rigid
yet very light and must not warp in the
heat cold and wind of the Chilean desert
with such stringent requirements the
engineers need highly specialized
technology located on the Netherlands
southern coast The Hague is home to a
producer of composite materials uniquely
suited for the challenges of the Alma
project the telescope's design calls for
24 pi like segments join together to
form the backup structure for each dish
they are made from millions of tiny
fibers the only material suitable for
this structure is composite material
it's lightweight strong it is very stiff
and thermal expansion is almost there
4,000 individual sheets of fiber
material make up each segment
technicians must layer the precise
shapes by hand as the fibers can be
easily damaged at this stage it's very
strong in this direction of the fibers
but when I make a band I break
the finished segment is then baked or
cured in a giant high-pressure oven
this hardens and strengthens the fibers
the engineers use a laser measurement
system to verify its shape to within 20
microns one-fifth the thickness of a
sheet of paper it takes weeks to craft a
single segment in all the team will
construct 600 each of them identical 140
miles away in northern Germany the
segments are tested together for the
first time like a circular jigsaw puzzle
technicians build the dish piece by
piece over a period of two weeks it's
the only way to ensure the shapes are
exactly to spec
the team's final step is to verify the
position of the 1300 Brahmans that will
hold the dishes reflective surface
everyone is measured to a precision of a
few thousandths of a millimeter the dish
is shipped in pieces to the Alma site in
Chile where it will be rebuilt one final
time far across the Atlantic in the
flatlands of East Texas the antennas
other half the finished base is
beginning its own journey outside of
Houston a team of 30 workers is moving
the first North American antenna
pedestal to the Gulf of Mexico because
it takes up the entire road they can
only transport the huge structure at
night it's almost dawn when the caravan
arrives at the harbor the pedestal will
spend the next two weeks in the hull of
an ocean freighter bound for Chile where
engineers will attempt to join it with
its dish for the first time
the next great leap in astronomy is
underway
to encounter some of the great mysteries
of modern astronomy we don't have to
look far into our own galaxy
only a hundred seventy-five light-years
away in the constellation Hydra is a
young star that could be the key to
understanding how our own solar system
developed
there's a wonderful protoplanetary disc
around the star TW Hydra this is a
unique system because it's one of the
closest known to the earth so we can see
it in the most detail only ten million
years old
1/500 the age of our Sun TW Hydra is a
planetary system that is just starting
to take shape we know that there is a
inner hole in the disk we think that the
holes being cleared out by a planet in
formation and with Alma we should be
able to see the gas and dust that's
forming the planet and even the gas and
dust in the circum planetary disc that
may be forming moons around this planet
Alma's views of TW Hydra and other
planetary discs will shed light on the
earliest history of our solar system and
could tell us where to look for other
earth-like planets suitable for life on
our own planet life flourishes in even
the most unlikely places and the Atacama
Desert is no exception here a number of
creatures thrive in the barren expanses
flocks of andean flamingos depend on the
salt flats for survival desert foxes and
wild donkeys comb the lush lowlands in
search of food
and in the high desert well-adapted
climbers like llamas and vicunas forged
nimbly on the rocky slopes the atacama
also has a unique human history the
Atacama Desert is the center of this
ethnic group call atacameños you see
the remains of ancient civilizations
before the arrival of the Spaniards it
was sort of a remote outpost of the
Incas very sparsely populated even today
you find original people the delicate
nature of the area presents
environmental challenges for the
expansive Alma project the desert is
something in master Carol you want to
keep the natural beauty of the place so
we are being very environmental friendly
one of the region's most imposing
features is known as the VA de la Luna
or Valley of the Moon
carved over millennia by wind and water
the otherworldly landscape lives up to
its name
almost a month after leaving Texas the
antenna pedestal must make its way
through the valleys narrow passages
after a 5,000 mile journey it finally
reaches its destination the 30,000
square-foot hangar constructed for final
assembly of the North American antennas
this is the side erection facility this
is the first place that the entire
antenna assembly comes together the
first major step in the assembly process
is also the most risky attaching the
dish to its face using a 100 ton crane
engineers slowly lift the 14,000 pound
dish structure 60 feet into the air
Foreman on hydraulic lifts relayed
commands to personnel on the ground who
steady the dish using a system of ropes
the final positioning can only be done
by hand
even a small bump can damage the dish
the 39-foot dish is aligned in the exact
center of the pedestal the antenna may
look complete but it's still missing a
critical component the reflective panels
that gather the light from space deep in
mainland Europe on the edge of Germany's
Black Forest metalworking specialists
create the telescope's precise dish
surface 264 aluminum panels each about
the size and thickness of a coffee table
sit on top of the dish structure the
different shapes fit together to form a
perfect 3d parabola
panels begin as high grade aluminum
slabs that have already passed stringent
materials testing to transform them into
precise shapes technicians use a
specialized five axis machining
instrumentum different titanium carbide
drill bits hollow out the interior in a
two-hour process making the panel's
lightweight but stiff the team uses a
coordinate measurement machine to verify
that each panels shape is perfect they
digitally map every surface to make sure
it will fit with the others
the first time the reflective surface is
assembled is upon arrival at the Alma
site technicians follow a strict
sequence as they carefully transport
them one at a time up to the antenna to
secure the panels correctly they have to
go inside the dish itself
small holes in each segment create a
tunnel with just enough clearance for
one of the team smallest workers he will
spend upwards of four hours at a time
inside the dishes hot interior the
elaborate process takes nearly three
weeks after stringent testing the
engineers turn the antenna over to Alma
scientists to be readied for the move to
the high site they are responsible for
checking every detail of the engineers
work inside and out
their long list of tests takes months to
complete
the team and the antenna still face
their biggest test to date the move
7,000 feet up to the array site where
years of design and development will
confront the raw power of nature to
discover our deepest roots we must
unlock the secrets of the early universe
some 13 billion years ago shortly after
the Big Bang we encounter a powerful
beacon in the dark this is a quasar a
newly forming galaxy anchored by a
supermassive black hole quasars are
among the most luminous objects in the
universe they're surrounded by vast
oceans of invisible gas that will one
day become stars seeing this process
remains a challenge we know very little
about what the gas is doing that is very
very distant early times in the universe
and almost going to completely open that
up for study for mankind it's really the
next major step in our understanding of
galaxy evolution light from the distant
universe reaches Alma's dishes as
extremely faint waves to capture them
requires a complex suite of microscopic
sensors and electronics known as the
front end
the signals that come in are extremely
weak and the front end has to be very
very sensitive in order to detect these
signals and to amplify them to a high
enough level that they can actually be
processed
the antenna works by collecting light
which is focused on a central mirror and
reflected down into the center of the
dish here the light is directed into one
of several tiny apertures each leading
to a receiver that is tuned to a certain
frequency the delicate receivers must be
cooled to four degrees above absolute
zero the amount of noise this generated
by any electronics is proportional to
its physical temperature so the colder
you make something the less noise that
it adds the signal inside a temperature
controlled cleanroom technicians
carefully install the receivers into the
front end using a precision guiding
instrument the front end is shipped
fully assembled to the AMA site
in the Chilean desert almost scientists
and engineers prepare for the most
critical event in the early life of the
observatory they are 24 hours away from
moving the first North American antenna
to its final destination on the Chuck
Nam tour Plateau decades of design and
testing work are on the line I think
we've been through so many tests to test
the what-ifs that I honestly believe
that barring anything that is just an
absolute unknown out of left field by
late afternoon tomorrow we're going to
set the antenna down on a certified
foundation at the high site we're going
to plug it in it's going to operate just
like it was operating here at the test
facility the engineering team performs
critical tests to make sure no mistakes
happen during the real thing
the success of the move hinges on the
electrical connections between the 11
million dollar antenna and the
specialized transporter that will haul
it into the high desert the Alma
transporters are engineering Marvel's
custom built by Alma's European partner
these two 33 foot wide 66 foot long
behemoths are designed to carry loads in
excess of 100 tons
they're 28 wheels have independent
drivin steering control allowing them to
maneuver to within millimeters of a
specific spot the transporter drivers
are equally specialized there are fewer
than a dozen people in the world
licensed to operate these precision
monster trucks drivers steer from the
transporters main cab
then use a specialized remote control
from a distance when making fine
movements the transporters will be used
throughout the observatory's lifespan to
move the antennas for maintenance and to
reposition them in the finished array at
Alma's Lowe site preparations for the
antenna move are going smoothly but then
the team encounters a problem
a vital electric current is not reaching
the main receiver cabinet
we did not find a 24-volt connection
between the antenna the transporter that
24 24 volt source is very critical and
communication between the antenna and
the transporter
without this connection the emergency
stops that cut power to the transporter
will not function
five hours later the engineers are
almost a half day behind schedule and
additional tests still need to be
completed the lead scientists call an
emergency meeting to discuss the
situation if there is a fire you are we
gonna get some alarm going on the team
makes a difficult decision they will
proceed as planned
with all safety personnel on high alert
the 25 mile road that snakes its way
through the mountains up to the Chuck
non-core plateau is the observatories
most dangerous feature the steep slopes
require hairpin turns and high
embankments
the road is especially hazardous for the
heavy trucks whose drivers must breathe
the thin air to take supplies up and
down
Alma's personnel take every precaution
possible but mishaps still occur since
construction began there have been 33
major accidents three of them fatal
with a historic antenna move only hours
away the risks are very real at Alma's
low site nearly 30 years of work is
about to culminate in a single day about
the way a condition a wind air increase
around 11 we are worried to leave from
here as early as possible for obtain the
best condition for this moment
project engineers prepare to move the
first North American antenna 7,000 feet
up into the Chilean Andes with so much
at stake there's tension in the cold
desert air one challenge that we have no
control over is going to be the weather
the wind and the chance of a snow out
and we get halfway up the hill and we've
got to either part or turn around and
come back already up against the clock
the team performs final safety checks
driver Luis Roja positions the
transporter with careful precision
115 tonnes of antennae are lifted into
the air including the transporter the
total weight is nearly 250 tonnes rescue
teams in front and behind guide the
transporter up the mountainside at the
ready in case of a mishap to protect the
antenna maximum speed is restricted to
12 miles per hour they will have five
hours to reach the top
on the plateau above desert winds are
already reaching dangerous speeds
part of the team arrives in advance to
brave the sandstorm and keep the antenna
pad drill holes free of sediment even a
small buildup of dirt it could prevent
the antenna from locking correctly to
the pad
on the steep slopes below progress is
slowed by repeated stops for safety
checks finally the antenna makes its way
for the first time on to the moon scape
of the Chuck Nagpur plateau the dust
storm is now in full force after 25
miles of steady climbing the most
critical step remains setting the
antenna down in 55 mile-per-hour winds
Lewis directs the transporter with
careful precision
and locks the antenna into position on
the first try
yesterday the critical power transfer
failed this time it works
today's a very momentous day for us
basically it's the culmination of eight
months of activity on the antenna this
is the real stepping stone for us to
completing the array
after decades of preparation Alma is
mere months from its first large-scale
observations
October 2003 the aurora borealis or
Northern Lights are seen as far south as
Texas
but their beauty does not imply
celestial calm they signal a coronal
mass ejection a load of charged
particles hurled by the Sun at more than
1,100 miles per second this one is so
strong it cuts power to more than 20,000
homes and knocks out communications
throughout the northern hemisphere it
reminds us how little we know about our
closest star the Sun is a challenging
object astronomically speaking for
astronomers because it's so big and it's
so bright Alma will study the sun's
chromis fear a violent layer of gas just
above the visible surface helping us
understand and predict solar storms you
need something that can look at very
bright objects but also can give you a
lot of resolution because these regions
that you're interested in typically are
quite small Alma can do that and it can
do it on short timescales so that's the
important thing you'll get these movies
essentially of how these active areas
develop it tells you about that space
weather environment and how these things
do actually propagate into the earth and
and can affect our daily lives
light from the Sun and other objects is
received and amplified at the front end
of each antenna
the telescope's back-end is where it is
combined and processed for astronomers
to study to produce high resolution
images the antennas must be precisely
synchronized using a device called an
oscillator
the Alma local oscillator is the main
tuner the entire array each antenna is
equipped with an oscillator for each
receiver they are synced together via
hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable
to one central oscillator that controls
the timing of the entire array the
required precision is on the order of a
few femtoseconds femtoseconds isn't a
word that I don't think I was even
familiar with before the project started
it's so short a million times a million
times a thousand times smaller than a
second in other words it's the time it
takes for light to travel the thickness
of a sheet of paper with more than ten
miles between antennas an error of even
a few thousandth of a millimeter could
ruin observations the enormous data
stream from each antenna presents
another unique challenge one that
requires a custom-built supercomputer
the Alma correlator
every antenna is producing 96 gigabits
per second of data
night and day that's enough to fill up a
DVD in less than a second in a personal
computer you have one or two or
sometimes four processors and all the
data that you're working on has to go
through a processor be worked on and
manipulated and come out the other end
in this machine we have a hundred and
twenty eight million processors built
and tested in Charlottesville Virginia
the correlator is the most powerful
supercomputer in the civilian world it
would have cost about a billion dollars
worth of pcs to do the arithmetic that
this machine does so it was clear that
we had to build a special machine to do
the calculations the correlator is
housed at the technical building at the
high site to minimize its distance from
the antennas
it will handle some 17 quadrillion
calculations every second and provide
astronomers with 800 gigabytes of new
data each day
with the correlator and three antennas
now installed Alma is ready for its
initial test as a working telescope for
the scientists it's a critical milestone
in paving the way for large-scale
observations we should be able to be
actually began the commissioning process
of the telescope as an integrated unit
not just testing individual antennas
which is what we've been doing up until
now I mean there are many telescopes
around the world that are bigger or
similar size to an individual Amman tena
but today we start working with the
antennas all working together they will
now move on to testing the telescope's
abilities as a tool for cutting-edge
astronomy a tool that will search the
cosmos for the building blocks of life
in the quest to understand our place in
the universe we are inching ever closer
to some of the biggest breakthroughs in
all of science within the last several
years astronomers have found a number of
planets that could Harbor life but the
secrets of how life begins are likely
shrouded with in the cold gas and dust
of interstellar space a realm we've only
begun to explore well the common thought
was that there's no way molecules would
ever be able to form in the very harsh
conditions of interstellar space you
have large amounts of ultraviolet flux
x-ray flux cosmic rays newly forming
stars creating shock waves that travel
throughout the interstellar medium all
these things are going on in these
environments and still large organic
molecules and molecules that make up
life are forming than they're forming in
large abundances in these environments
the solar system in these planetary
systems had to form out of this
circumstellar material that contains all
these different organic molecules so
we're all made of the interstellar
medium that is floating between the
stars
at the University of Virginia's Center
for chemistry of the universe a team of
enterprising scientists is figuring out
how complex molecules form in space a
science called astrochemistry using a
specially designed reaction chamber they
recreate the extreme conditions of
interstellar space well what you
shouldn't really feel bad about the
molecules that were putting into the
chamber back there we're not torturing
them but what we're trying to do is get
them to react from stops of known
chemicals they are creating new
molecules every line here is a molecule
many of these molecules that are formed
have never been seen before ever
astro chemists are building a database
of ever more complex molecules that
astronomers can use to identify new
chemicals they find in space these
experiments will guide almost scientists
in their quest to answer the age-old
question are we alone what we're going
to be able to do now with Alma is to
make chemical maps and this could have a
lot of different implications especially
for astrobiology or we actually want to
see where do the organic molecules the
molecules that make up life where do
they actually form in these regions of
newly forming stars astrobiology might
actually evolved into astrogeology or
Astro botany we're actually studying
plants and animals on other planetary
systems and it's very exciting to say
that we're actually starting at first
step starting now
hi in the Atacama Alma is preparing to
open a new window on the cosmos nine
antennas now stand ready to make the
highest resolution millimetre
observations in history tonight the team
will focus the array on the star T W
Hydra to find hard evidence of planet
formation T W Hydra is very young solar
system information we see signatures in
T W Hydra then suggest the existence of
planets what we need Alma for is to
really hammer down and say you know this
is really a planet orbiting this star
it's cleared out this this gap in that
disc t do be Hydra is so much better for
this because it's three times closer
than anything else we have so we've got
a little while to wait before we can
look at the phase calibrator but it
looks like the the operator turns all
nine antennas on the young star and
opens their apertures
as the light from space floods in the
antennas stay locked in precise
synchronization
and the correlator churns out a steady
stream of entirely new data from space
the observation is a success at two
hours it is the telescope's longest to
date with so much data it takes the team
the rest of the night to make actual
pictures
Alma's images are computerized
interpretations of the telescope's data
different colors represent varying
intensities of light even these early
images show previously hidden details
one of the things that it's obvious to
us just looking at this straight off the
bat you would expect it to be a little
bit brighter in the middle so there's a
hint of some depression this depression
is further evidence that a newborn
planet is just forming in the disk
clearing out a path of matter as it
grows in size
as Alma continues to add antennas and
add capabilities we'll be able to get
not only more sensitive imaging we'll be
able to get the higher resolution which
will mean that we'll see finer detail
and it's just opening the door we're
just gonna blow everything out of the
water that's been done I mean it's gonna
be so much more fabulous in terms of
what we can get out of it that it's
really sort of a new horizon
as work continues and Alma steadily
grows in size and complexity the
landscape of astronomy is beginning to
change forever
with each new antenna we get a clearer
picture of the story of the universe and
our place within it
even in well-known regions of space
astronomers are uncovering new worlds of
knowledge showing us where we come from
and undoubtedly confronting a host of
entirely new questions astronomy is
unique and a science and that we can use
it to understand where we came from
nature is cleverer than we are just when
you think you know everything you have a
surprise every single field you can
think of from her solar system to star
formation of all masses and our galaxy
and nearby galaxies to detecting even
light from the first stars that formed I
don't think there's any field of
astronomy that will remain untouched by
the advent of formal the big question is
how many solar systems turn out like our
room where we have habitable planets
like Earth how often does that happen
and what are the processes that make
that happen almost really going to break
this field open
named Alma in Spanish means soul when
Alma is doing is looking at the soul of
the stars
Algirdas internationalist nacionales
recognizes a localize it is an honor for
me to welcome you to the ceremony in
which will inaugurate the Atacama Large
millimeter/submillimeter Array known as
Alma after 30 years of planning and more
than a decade of construction the Alma
telescope is inaugurated in the presence
of world leaders foreign dignitaries and
scientists who have dedicated much of
their lives to this accomplishment thank
you very much International Space
Station as we look down upon a
magnificent Atacama Desert high in the
Chilean Andes we can see the results of
an immense effort by the nations of the
world to study the universe in new ways
we congratulate the scientific
communities of North America and Europe
and East Asia on today's achievement all
the very best to you
and enjoy your new discoveries
at the array operations site the full
complement of antennas has endured some
of the harshest conditions on earth
while undergoing routine maintenance and
frequent upgrades the first full-scale
observations are already changing our
understanding of the cosmos and taking
us deep into new areas of space 450
light years from us in the constellation
Taurus two newly born stars revolve
about each other
in a binary system their brightness
obscures planet-forming disks encircling
the stars but when observed in
millimetre and submillimetre light using
Alma the disks shine as bright or even
brighter than the stars in the clearest
ever image of the system astronomers
discovered that the planet-forming disks
are surprisingly misaligned with their
stars orbital planes and likely stay
off-kilter for the rest of their lives
closer to us at around 175 million light
years the star T W hide ray is revealing
even more about the birth of our solar
system this time in the form of
something never seen before in a
planetary disc snow by imaging molecules
normally destroyed in the presence of
carbon monoxide gas astronomers using
Alma were able to infer a snow line of
frozen carbon monoxide particles
encircling the star at a distance of 2.6
billion miles the first ever image of
this phenomenon supports theories that
snow lines contribute to planetary
formation much as they may have done
nearly 5 billion years ago in our own
solar system
these remarkable discoveries and many
others have been made with Alma's
antennas close together recently the
telescope was reconfigured for the first
time to allow long baseline observations
and the increased resolution resulted in
a remarkable and unexpected discovery
returning to the constellation Taurus in
the distant dust clouds surrounding the
star HL Tauri astronomers captured
stunning evidence of how planets may
form in an extremely high-resolution
image the first time I saw this image I
thought it was actually probably a
simulation it was just way too good this
star HL Tauri was about a million years
old and as we look at the star with the
Alma telescope we see gaps in the radio
emission in this dish that's orbiting
the star and quite likely those gaps are
being caused by planetesimals young
planets which are forming around this
time this is really I think the first
example of the type of science that Alma
will be doing for many many years now it
could be that as we look at more objects
like HL Tauri we're going to see more
complex discs we will actually at the
higher frequencies may be able to see
the actual planets causing the gaps in
the Rings so it's an incredibly exciting
time and it's the start of a long
journey for helmet
you
we got you a TV picture here now
at one
but diet please
