Within the framework of the scientific conference “ALMA 10 years: Past, Present, Future,” which is bringing together 180 astronomers and astronomers from around the world in Puerto Varas, southern Chile, between December 4 and 8, 2023, astronomers Sergio Martín and Juan Cortés gave a press conference to show the achievements and discoveries of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the last decade, which have marked a milestone in our understanding of the Universe.
Over three decades ago, North America, Europe, and Japan began outlining the idea of building a millimeter observatory as three separate projects. Thanks to the leaders’ vision of that time, a joint project much more ambitious than what was initially projected was possible. A global collaboration from the Atacama plateau in Chile has been in search of our cosmic origins for a decade.
Some exciting discoveries of these first ten years of ALMA have been the first image of a black hole (with the EHT Collaboration) and impressive views of protoplanetary disks. In total, more than 3,500 scientific publications have been published thanks to this unique instrument of its kind.
As a host country, Chile has gained numerous benefits, including developing high-tech skills and promoting astronomy. Chilean scientists are guaranteed access to 10% of ALMA’s observing time, promoting significant growth in the number of local astronomers, from 50 in the early 2000s to more than 300 today.To commemorate this first decade of operations, ALMA called 180 members of its scientific community around the world to meet at a conference in which, starting today, it is sharing its latest results and in which they will be able to look at the technical challenges of the future to stay in the world’s technological vanguard.The conference that takes place in Puerto Varas between December 4 and 8 includes talks and posters from experts from around the world on cosmology and galaxies in the distant Universe, star formation, astrochemistry, exoplanets, and the Sun, to name just a few.
