(Describer) Streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation. Brown land is streaked with snow.
[explosion]
(male narrator)
At first glance this bone-dry
landscape seems inhospitable.
But for astronomers,
it's prime real estate
that's home to the world's
largest ground-based telescope.
It's called ALMA.
(Describer) A couple dozen satellite dishes turn in unison.
And with support from
the National Science Foundation,
it's allowing them to see
the universe like never before.
(man)
ALMA is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array,
(Describer) Kartik Sheth:
and it will be a telescope
made up of 66 antennas
at 16,500 feet in the deserts
of Atacama in Chile.
(narrator)
Kartik Sheth
is with the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory
in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He's part of a team
of astronomers
putting this new array to work.
(Sheth)
Together, these telescopes,
as a single telescope,
can be as large
as ten miles in diameter
and ten to a hundred times
more powerful
than any existing telescope.
(narrator)
In the high desert,
ALMA sits above 4%
of the Earth's atmosphere
and virtually all
the world's water vapor.
(Sheth)
It gives us a window that is
transparent to outer space.
(narrator)
ALMA will peer into a slice
of the electromagnetic spectrum
at millimeter wavelengths,
light that is closer
to a radio wave
than to optical light
our eyes can see.
ALMA has the ability
to map the gas and dust
in galaxies with the same power,
the same sensitivity
and resolution,
from today
to the edge of the universe.
(narrator)
That's critical for Sheth,
who also studies
the evolution of galaxies.
ALMA can look
where optical telescopes can't.
Many stars are forming
around the black hole
at the center of this galaxy.
We'll zoom in
to this central ring,
and ALMA can see
where the dust is located,
and we're able to understand
how much fuel there is
for the black hole.
(narrator)
ALMA can detect hidden gases
inside galaxies
that can hold the key
to star and planetary formation.
It might even detect
the building blocks of life.
(Sheth)
What excites me about my work is
the possibility of discovering
new star systems,
new galaxies.
(narrator)
Unlocking the secrets
of the universe
by seeing it
in a different light.
(Describer) A globe turns.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O'Brien.
