Pressemitteilungen

6. April 2001: Representatives from Europe, Japan, and North America met in Tokyo today and signed a Resolution affirming their mutual intent to construct and operate a giant radio telescope in co-operation with the Republic of Chile, where the telescope will be located.

14. März 2000: The European and U.S. partners in the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) project have awarded contracts to firms in Italy and the USA, respectively, for two prototype antennas. [1] ALMA is a planned telescope array, expected to consist of 64 millimeter-wave antennas with 12-meter diameter dishes. The array will be built at a high-altitude, extremely dry mountain site in Chile's Atacama desert, and is scheduled to be completed sometime in this decade.

7. Oktober 1999: The clip contains a full-scale computer animation of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) at the future site of this large astronomical facility.

10. Juni 1999: Representatives from the U.S. and Europe signed an agreement today in Washington to continue collaboration on the first phase of a giant new telescope project. The telescope will image the Universe with unprecedented sensitivity and sharpness at millimeter wavelengths (between the radio and infrared spectral regions). It will be a major step for astronomy, making it possible to study the origins of galaxies, stars and planets. A Joint Press Release by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO)

10. Juni 1999: The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is the new name [2] for a giant millimeter-wavelength telescope project. As described in the accompanying joint press release by ESO and the U.S. National Science Foundation , the present design and development phase is now a Europe-U.S. collaboration, and may soon include Japan. ALMA may become the largest ground-based astronomy project of the next decade after VLT/VLTI, and one of the major new facilities for world astronomy. ALMA will make it possible to study the origins of galaxies, stars and planets.

15. September 1998: In an extraordinary meeting at the ESO Headquarters, the ESO Council today endorsed ESO's involvement in the planning of a major new astronomical facility in the southern hemisphere. Some years from now, the Large Southern Array/Millimetre Array (LSA/MMA) may become the world's prime sub-mm/mm radio observatory [1] at a pristine site at 5000 m altitude in the Chilean Andes, not very far from the VLT Paranal Observatory.