We had booked a visit to the ALMA observatory months before leaving home as only 70 people are allowed to visit each weekend. Having worried about finding the departure point it turned out to be less than 100 yards from our hostel. Jumping on a coach we were met by an amazing guide so passionate about astronomy and ALMA that she makes a round trip every other weekend from Patagonia of over 5000 miles. She was so passionate that you could not help but be enthused. So what did we learn? (the geek bit)
(ALMA) is the world's most powerful observatory for studying the universe. 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's is located in Chile's Atacama desert, the driest place in the world. It is one of the highest instruments on the earth , at an altitude of 5050 metres. Perched on the Chajnantor plateau it is above much of the Earth's atmosphere, which blurs and distorts light.
It looks like something out of a science fiction movie with staff working at 5000 metres wearing oxygen masks. The Huge dishes are moved around the plateau by equally huge transporters and can be up to 16 kilometres apart or in a close configuration.
ALMA has 66 radio antennas to create images comparable to those that could be obtained with a single 46,000-foot-wide (14,000 meters) dish The radio dishes, weigh about 100 tons each. We asked the person running the control room which project had fascinated him most to which he replied linking ALMA to other observatory’s to form the equivalent of
a dish the size of the earth. How cool is that!
The electronic detector called the "front end" that amplifies and converts the radio signals collected at each ALMA antenna must be kept at a chilling 4 Kelvin ( minus 452 Fahrenheit)
We watched engineers repairing equipment and learned that unless earthed the electricity in the human body would burn the equipment making it useless.
There are 250 staff at ALMA which is a billion pound engineering project sending raw data to astronomers around the world.
It was a great privilege to visit this amazing big science project and to be allowed to see and talk to the staff at work.
A few days later we booked a star gazing trip and after a long wait we were picked up by a tatty toothless scruffy man who spoke no English but shouted in intimidating Spanish. In the front seat was a French woman, who we discovered was petrified of our driver. After picking up three giggling Japanese women, the scary driver raced off down winding dark streets talking on his mobile as we wondered whether would live see the dawn.
Finally to great relief we arrived at the home of our astronomer, who guided us around the amazing night sky and we learned about and looked at stars thousands of light years away.
After a stop for hot chocolate, wine and our favourite bit,
cheese on sticks we moved on to looking at the moon which had now emerged into the night sky.
All too soon it was time to rejoin our scary driver who had some how morphed into a friendly if still scruffy man for the journey back to our hostel.
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