ALMA at night

ALMA as it tracks across the night sky, with a nice overhead view of the Milky Way. The ALMA array consists of 66 parabolic radio antennas located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The array helps astronomers study some of the coldest objects in our universe. The antennas can be steered very precisely and pointed with extremely good angular accuracy, this means the telescope is accurate enough to pick a golf ball from a distance of 15 kilometres. ALMA combines its signals from across its entire array which means the telescope is as large as the entire array. Furthermore, the individual dishes of ALMA are built to withstand the harsh environment of the desert, intense sunlight, harsh winds and temperature fluctuations between +20 degrees Celsius and -20 degrees Celsius making it extremely durable.