Physics Buzz

The largest ground-based astronomy project of all time perches more than three miles above sea level in one of the driest deserts on Earth. A particularly parched region of the Atacama Desert in South America is the Antofagasta Region, which is where the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array calls home. ALMA is the “hardest place on the planet to work” according to astronomer Joaquin Vieira. Vieira, who is an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, knows what it’s like to work in harsh conditions. Operational antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array. Credit: ESO About six years ago he spent a month and half in the South Pole helping build the 10-meter South Pole Telescope. With that telescope, Vieira and fellow team members surveyed a part of the sky mapping out locations of distant galaxies. Years later, Vieira directed ALMA to that same spot on the sky and, with a team of more than 60 scientists, publi