Winning names for antennas after popular poll

1 October, 2021 / Read time: 8 minutes

ALMA is celebrating 10 years since it officially opened for astronomers. ALMA Early Science started on September 30, 2011 and its first image of the Antennae Galaxies, made using only twelve antennas working together, was released on October 3, 2011.

As part of this celebration, a month before the anniversary, names suggested by the public were collected to name the 66 ALMA antennas. There were two categories: Celestial objects and words in the Atacameño Kunza language, because the observatory is installed in indigenous territory. More than 200 concepts that met this criterion arrived, which a month later were presented to a popular consultation through the ALMA website and its social networks in which the public was asked to vote for the names they like the most.

Some 6,000 people voted and these and these are the concepts chosen and the assignment of names for each antenna:

Download PDF with descriptions and meanings

#ALMAnames Poll Winners

ALMA Antennas

If you take a close look at photos of ALMA, you will see that there are three different types of antennas. 25 antennas were built by the North American partners. European partners built 25 antennas. And 16 antennas (four big and twelve smaller ones) were built by the East Asian partners. So everyone helped to build ALMA.

In total, ALMA has 66 antennas: fifty-four 12-meter diameter antennas and twelve 7-meter diameter antennas. The radio telescope combines signals from each, working as an interferometer, in other words, a single giant telescope equal in size to the total array.

With perfect parabolic shapes and a precision equivalent to within a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, this is one of the most precise antennas in the world.

Unlike a telescope that is built in place and remains there, these antennas are solid enough to be moved between different pads without damaging their high-precision mechanisms. They are moved with transporter trucks that have been designed especially for these antennas and are able to reposition them to adapt to the required observation needs.

They do not need a dome or cupola to protect them. Although their reflectors are exposed to extreme conditions at an altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level in the Chajnantor Plateau, facing gusty winds and temperatures that vary from 20 to -20 degrees Celsius, and even snow, the antennas are designed to withstand these conditions.

History

In 2009, the first completed antenna was transported from the ALMA camp or Operations Support Facility (OSF) to the Chajnantor Plateau or ALMA Operations Site (AOS), at 5,000 meters above sea level.

ALMA, A WORLDWIDE COLLABORATION

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) -the largest astronomical project in existence- is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed of 66 high precision antennas located on the Chajnantor Plateau, 5000 meters altitude in northern Chile. ALMA is an international partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan, together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.