Image of the Day - ALMA's first image

Today's Image of the Day for 4/10/11 - ALMA's first image

ALMA pictures antennae galaxies courtesy of feltworks

This is the remarkable first picture taken by the new $1.3 billion radio telescope sitting high in the Chilean Andes - using only a quarter of the antennae it will have when it comes into full operation in 2013. Even now, this shot of the Antennae Galaxies taken by the Atacama Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is astonishing - showing two galaxies colliding in a view no other telescope on Earth or in space could capture. The $1 billion radio telescope is the most expensive ground-based telescope ever built - and the highest-altitude, at 16,000ft. Chile's Atacama desert was chosen for its dryness and clarity - and this test view shows off the telescope's exceptional power at detecting 'cold' matter using radio waves. The combined image shown would not be visible at all to visible-light and infrared telescopes.