Telescope described as 'biggest leap since Galileo' will unravel how planets form - and could solve

[Judi Lynn]

Telescope described as 'biggest leap since Galileo' will unravel how planets form - and could solve the mystery of where Earth's oceans came from
By Rob Waugh

Last updated at 1:10 AM on 18th February 2012

The world's most expensive ground-based telescope, the $1.3billion ALMA array high in the Chilean Andes, has a new mission - to study how planets like our Earth form.

Together with another huge radio telescope, the Very Large Array (VLA), a collection of 27 antennae in New Mexico, ALMA is delivering the first insights into how planets form from the discs of gas and dust around young stars.

Scientists at ALMA describe the telescope as the biggest leap in the technology since Galileo.

These new 'eyes' will allow us to study, at unprecedented scales, the motion of gas and dust in the disks surrounding young stars, and put our theories of planet formation to the test,’ said David Wilner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

[center]

Desert location: ALMA radio telescope sits in the Chajnantor
plateau, in Chile's Atacama desert, some 1500 km north of Santiago[/center]

More:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2102564/New-telescopes-described-biggest-leap-Galileo-unravel-mysteries-planets-form.html#ixzz1mm66W8PD

[valerief]

1. I wonder how their satellite tv reception is. nt

[dipsydoodle]

2. Because I was focused on the hill and the mountain

I thought those were sheep in the foreground and couldn't find the telescopes.

[DirkGently]

4. I saw sheep too.

Sounds like a great instrument, though.

[Tanelorn]

5. Me too

[donco]

6. BAAAA

Sheep people rock.ME TOO.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Yup, me, too! I wondered why the Array wasn't in the photo.

I saw sheep.

Strange optical illusion sort of thing in the photo.

Ha, ha! I dig sheep "listening" for alien signals and contemplating dust around distant suns. They are likely better thinkers than we are--have more patience, and time, and grow their own clothing, and eat grass. I mean, if we weren't so distracted seeking all of our "necessities," we would long ago have made "contact" and now would be benefiting from "dilithium" engines and "replicators." Certainly the sheep know this and are laughing at us. In fact, a sheep took this picture!

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Strangely beautiful, the ALMA array...

except for the snow, almost a lunar landscape.

SG