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(the major successor to the Hubble Space Telescope) will be able to observe objects 10 times fainter than HST at optical wavelengths; at longer wavelengths in the infrared, it will be able to detect objects up to 100,000 times fainter than can be seen from an 8 metre class telescope on the ground (labeled VLT).
First Generation
Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)
ALMA will be, by far, the world's most powerful radio telescope operating at mm and sub-mm wavelengths, both in terms of sensitivity (ability to detect extremely faint sources) and angular resolution (ability to "see" the fine detail of structure in those same sources). It is the top priority in ground-based astronomy for the American and European astronomy communities over the coming decade and it is easy to see why. ALMA will be able to detect cosmic sources up to a thousand times fainter than is possible with any existing mm telescope. |
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Sensitivity of several World-level telescopes as a function of frequency. The black line shows the typical radiation energy received from a (very) distant galaxy. The red lines towards the bottom of the plot show the sensitivities of several of the future world facilities. The other colored lines show the sensitivities of current facilities. Lower is better! Large tick marks on the vertical axis correspond to a factor 10 in sensitivity. |
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It will also produce images of these sources with at least ten times higher resolution (down to one hundredth of an arcsecond) than either the Hubble Space Telescope or the Very Large Array in New Mexico. This is equivalent to resolving a house on the Moon! As currently envisaged, the telescope would comprise about 64 antennas, each about 12 metres in diameter. It would operate at wavelengths from 10 mm down to 0.35 mm in the sub-mm band. The current partners include the USA, Europe, and possibly Japan; other potential partners are now expressing strong interest. Canada's scientific and technological capabilities are extremely well matched to ALMA
The science goals for ALMA are conveniently summarized at http://www.mma.nrao.edu/science. ALMA will focus on millimetre wave observations of dense gas, |
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Proposed site for ALMA,
at Llano Chajnantor at
5000 metres altitude in the
Chilean desert.
Photo by S. Radford, NOAO |
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;)
;)