APEX antenna

The APEX antenna. APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment, is a collaboration between Max Planck Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR), Onsala Space Observatory (OSO), and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at to construct and operate a modified ALMA prototype antenna as a single dish on the high altitude site of Llano Chajnantor in Chile. Observing with APEX will allow for the study of warm and cold dust in starforming regions both in the Milky Way and in distant galaxies in the young universe. Issues like the vast scales of the structure of the Universe down to the physics and chemistry of comets will be addressed. This image was obtained in March 2009.