• The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the world’s most powerful observatory for studying the universe at the long-wavelength millimeter and submillimeter range of light.
• It’s designed to spot some of the most distant, ancient galaxies ever seen, and to probe the areas around young stars for planets in the process of forming.
• ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array, an astronomical interferometer of radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile) results have provided new insights on how normal spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, looked in their very nascent stages, 12 billion years ago. In one of the systems, we found clear evidence of a rotating disk galaxy, similar to the Milky Way.
• ALMA partner countries include the USA, Chile, Canada, Japan, and many countries in Europe.
• Unfortunately, India is not an ALMA partner country, which makes it very difficult for Indian astronomers to obtain observing time on ALMA.

Source: IE