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we are entering a golden age in astronomy advances in technology are
giving astronomers unprecedented capabilities allowing us to explore the
universe as never before we'll be able to understand our future and what our
ultimate fate is going to be in the universe
in the high desert of northern Chile an international team of scientists and
engineers is on a quest to unlock the secrets of the hidden universe they are
pushing the limits of technology to build the most advanced Observatory on
earth in one of our planet's most inhospitable places
known as Alma the Atacama Large millimeter/submillimeter Array this
30-year project promises to open a new window on the cosmos and redefine our
place among the stars whenever you build something that opens up new
possibilities and then opens up the new space of discovery and that is a
remarkable ability that Alma will provide
as humans we're always asking questions perhaps the most fundamental is where do
we come from
to answer we must venture into unknown regions of the universe to its very edge
where the first galaxies are forming deep within immense clouds of gas and
dust where stars are igniting and organic molecules are slowly building
the ingredients of life and inside dusty discs where young planets take shape
around their future Suns such alien realms are separated from us by almost
unimaginable distance and time and are shrouded in veils of dust and gas are
there other worlds where life has taken hold how did they come to be today we
are on the verge of a giant leap in understanding in one of our planet's
most unforgiving environments an ambitious new telescope is poised to
revolutionize everything we know about our cosmic origins
it is called Alma astronomers study what they can observe for centuries that
meant stars planets and other visible objects but the universe is deepest
secrets may lie in the darkness between them empty space is a little bit of a
misnomer especially nowadays in modern astronomy wherever we look with
telescopes we see something there's gas there's dust there are stars and
whenever we look at a new unexplored region of the electromagnetic spectrum
we find something different starlight arrives in every color we can see but
this visible light is only a tiny sliver of a vast electromagnetic spectrum that
encompasses every kind of light we know of we've been able to explore just about
all of it but one part has been especially tricky to observe a range
known as millimetre and submillimetre wavelength light which represents half
of the light that reaches us from distant space
peering into this cold dusty realm requires a telescope that goes beyond
anything ever achieved in radio astronomy because the light they observe
is so weak radio telescopes must be built on a colossal scale they have
either a single massive collecting surface or an array of smaller dishes
spread across a flat expanse combine these individual antennas form a single
giant dish as large as the entire array
Alma is the most ambitious ground-based telescope ever attempted the astronomers
design calls for 66 highly sensitive antennas each costing over five million
dollars teams from North America Europe and East Asia are sharing the cost of
the 1.3 billion dollar project each region is responsible for its own
antenna design and construction the international collaboration and
competition is drawing the world's top scientists and engineers pushing the
limits of innovation Alma scientists need more than cutting-edge technology
they need a site unlike any other in ground-based astronomy
there were three conditions a place that would be high and therefore very dry
that would be flat so that we could put antennas in accessible the number of
high big flat sites in the world is very limited and so the search for the oma
site began in New Mexico close to home there was a place called the Aquarius
plateau in Utah which was pretty good it's very high but it turns out it has
about five feet of snow on it all winter long and can't move the antennas around
at all the site to end all sites at least at the time for astronomy was
Hawaii we studied the possibility of putting the Ray Allen Mauna Kea with the
other big telescopes and it just barely could fit when we were asked why aren't
you looking at Chile and so we made a trip to Chile
the high desert of northern Chile is renowned for its clear skies
but the remote location presents huge challenges despite them Chile remains
the team's last best hope on the day that that we went looking for a place
Heraldo via diaries and I drove along going to higher elevation heading up a
very narrow old sulphur mining road / ruts around boulders bouncing our way up
we're having a good time and and we're headed towards something that's that's
at least high enough to have flat ground
we walk and look out and it is just unbelievable lo and behold here is this
enormous flat plain so really exciting I mean we felt like real adventurer
you
the Atacama is the driest desert on earth
some parts have never recorded a drop of rain
what moisture there is typically condenses on the towering peaks of the
Andes
millions of years of volcanic activity have created perhaps the most unique
feature in the region the Chuck Nam tour Plateau
this high-altitude plane stops the moisture Laden air rising from the
Amazon basin it's Mars like surface provides the
perfect terrain for cutting-edge radio astronomy finding an ideal site is one
thing building the telescope in this extreme environment is another the
project faces significant hurdles not
least if these challenges is this site itself
the 16,500 foot-high array operations site is the highest large-scale
construction site on earth it is also one of the harshest temperatures
fluctuate from minus 20 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit UV radiation is almost double
what it is at sea level
winds are often clocked at 75 miles per hour the conditions affect both man and
machine the atmosphere is roughly half what it is at sea level so you have half
the oxygen manpower tends to suffer from oxygen deprivation they tend to be
lightheaded they tend to be nauseous and there's more subject to injury or
accidents at that high site to deal with these risks Alma's design calls for a
second lower elevation site the Operations Support Facility at 9,500
feet
workers live here just below the 10,000 foot level at which high-altitude
sickness increasingly strikes
but altitude and weather aren't the only dangers the Atacama Desert sits above a
fault line in the infamous Ring of Fire that encircles the Pacific earthquakes
and landslides are common
just to the southeast of the observatory an active volcano called laskhar looms
overhead she sends an almost daily smoke signal
of warning into the sky the ash cloud from an eruption could paralyze the
telescope for weeks
for the astronomers these dangers are a calculated risk in their quest for new
science for the engineers they present profound challenges
Alma's builders must find materials and designs that deliver unprecedented
performance in this unforgiving environment if they succeed this
international team will change astronomy forever
in the quest to discover our cosmic origins engineers are building the most
complex Observatory in history of utmost importance are the antenna dishes
measuring 12 meters across a main Alma dish is the business end of a highly
sensitive instrument to maintain its precise shape the dish needs to be rigid
yet very light and must not warp in the heat cold and wind of the Chilean desert
with such stringent requirements the engineers need highly specialized
technology located on the Netherlands southern coast The Hague is home to a
producer of composite materials uniquely suited for the challenges of the Alma
project the telescope's design calls for 24 pi like segments join together to
form the backup structure for each dish they are made from millions of tiny
fibers the only material suitable for this structure is composite material
it's lightweight strong it is very stiff and thermal expansion is almost there
4,000 individual sheets of fiber material make up each segment
technicians must layer the precise shapes by hand as the fibers can be
easily damaged at this stage it's very strong in this direction of the fibers
but when I make a band I break the finished segment is then baked or
cured in a giant high-pressure oven
this hardens and strengthens the fibers
the engineers use a laser measurement system to verify its shape to within 20
microns one-fifth the thickness of a sheet of paper it takes weeks to craft a
single segment in all the team will construct 600 each of them identical 140
miles away in northern Germany the segments are tested together for the
first time like a circular jigsaw puzzle technicians build the dish piece by
piece over a period of two weeks it's the only way to ensure the shapes are
exactly to spec
the team's final step is to verify the position of the 1300 Brahmans that will
hold the dishes reflective surface everyone is measured to a precision of a
few thousandths of a millimeter the dish is shipped in pieces to the Alma site in
Chile where it will be rebuilt one final time far across the Atlantic in the
flatlands of East Texas the antennas other half the finished base is
beginning its own journey outside of Houston a team of 30 workers is moving
the first North American antenna pedestal to the Gulf of Mexico because
it takes up the entire road they can only transport the huge structure at
night it's almost dawn when the caravan arrives at the harbor the pedestal will
spend the next two weeks in the hull of an ocean freighter bound for Chile where
engineers will attempt to join it with its dish for the first time
the next great leap in astronomy is underway
to encounter some of the great mysteries of modern astronomy we don't have to
look far into our own galaxy only a hundred seventy-five light-years
away in the constellation Hydra is a young star that could be the key to
understanding how our own solar system developed
there's a wonderful protoplanetary disc around the star TW Hydra this is a
unique system because it's one of the closest known to the earth so we can see
it in the most detail only ten million years old
1/500 the age of our Sun TW Hydra is a planetary system that is just starting
to take shape we know that there is a inner hole in the disk we think that the
holes being cleared out by a planet in formation and with Alma we should be
able to see the gas and dust that's forming the planet and even the gas and
dust in the circum planetary disc that may be forming moons around this planet
Alma's views of TW Hydra and other planetary discs will shed light on the
earliest history of our solar system and could tell us where to look for other
earth-like planets suitable for life on our own planet life flourishes in even
the most unlikely places and the Atacama Desert is no exception here a number of
creatures thrive in the barren expanses
flocks of andean flamingos depend on the salt flats for survival desert foxes and
wild donkeys comb the lush lowlands in search of food
and in the high desert well-adapted climbers like llamas and vicunas forged
nimbly on the rocky slopes the atacama also has a unique human history the
Atacama Desert is the center of this ethnic group call atacameƱos you see
the remains of ancient civilizations before the arrival of the Spaniards it
was sort of a remote outpost of the Incas very sparsely populated even today
you find original people the delicate nature of the area presents
environmental challenges for the expansive Alma project the desert is
something in master Carol you want to keep the natural beauty of the place so
we are being very environmental friendly
one of the region's most imposing features is known as the VA de la Luna
or Valley of the Moon
carved over millennia by wind and water the otherworldly landscape lives up to
its name
almost a month after leaving Texas the antenna pedestal must make its way
through the valleys narrow passages
after a 5,000 mile journey it finally reaches its destination the 30,000
square-foot hangar constructed for final assembly of the North American antennas
this is the side *** facility this is the first place that the entire
antenna assembly comes together the first major step in the assembly process
is also the most risky attaching the dish to its face using a 100 ton crane
engineers slowly lift the 14,000 pound dish structure 60 feet into the air
Foreman on hydraulic lifts relayed commands to personnel on the ground who
steady the dish using a system of ropes
the final positioning can only be done by hand
even a small bump can damage the dish
the 39-foot dish is aligned in the exact center of the pedestal the antenna may
look complete but it's still missing a critical component the reflective panels
that gather the light from space deep in mainland Europe on the edge of Germany's
Black Forest metalworking specialists create the telescope's precise dish
surface 264 aluminum panels each about the size and thickness of a coffee table
sit on top of the dish structure the different shapes fit together to form a
perfect 3d parabola
panels begin as high grade aluminum slabs that have already passed stringent
materials testing to transform them into precise shapes technicians use a
specialized five axis machining instrumentum different titanium carbide
drill bits hollow out the interior in a two-hour process making the panel's
lightweight but stiff the team uses a coordinate measurement machine to verify
that each panels shape is perfect they digitally map every surface to make sure
it will fit with the others
the first time the reflective surface is assembled is upon arrival at the Alma
site technicians follow a strict sequence as they carefully transport
them one at a time up to the antenna to secure the panels correctly they have to
go inside the dish itself
small holes in each segment create a tunnel with just enough clearance for
one of the team smallest workers he will spend upwards of four hours at a time
inside the dishes hot interior the elaborate process takes nearly three
weeks after stringent testing the engineers turn the antenna over to Alma
scientists to be readied for the move to the high site they are responsible for
checking every detail of the engineers work inside and out
their long list of tests takes months to complete
the team and the antenna still face their biggest test to date the move
7,000 feet up to the array site where years of design and development will
confront the raw power of nature to discover our deepest roots we must
unlock the secrets of the early universe
some 13 billion years ago shortly after the Big *** we encounter a powerful
beacon in the dark this is a quasar a newly forming galaxy anchored by a
supermassive black hole quasars are among the most luminous objects in the
universe they're surrounded by vast oceans of invisible gas that will one
day become stars seeing this process remains a challenge we know very little
about what the gas is doing that is very very distant early times in the universe
and almost going to completely open that up for study for mankind it's really the
next major step in our understanding of galaxy evolution light from the distant
universe reaches Alma's dishes as extremely faint waves to capture them
requires a complex suite of microscopic sensors and electronics known as the
front end the signals that come in are extremely
weak and the front end has to be very very sensitive in order to detect these
signals and to amplify them to a high enough level that they can actually be
processed the antenna works by collecting light
which is focused on a central mirror and reflected down into the center of the
dish here the light is directed into one of several tiny apertures each leading
to a receiver that is tuned to a certain frequency the delicate receivers must be
cooled to four degrees above absolute zero the amount of noise this generated
by any electronics is proportional to its physical temperature so the colder
you make something the less noise that it adds the signal inside a temperature
controlled cleanroom technicians carefully install the receivers into the
front end using a precision guiding instrument the front end is shipped
fully assembled to the AMA site
in the Chilean desert almost scientists and engineers prepare for the most
critical event in the early life of the observatory they are 24 hours away from
moving the first North American antenna to its final destination on the Chuck
Nam tour Plateau decades of design and testing work are on the line I think
we've been through so many tests to test the what-ifs that I honestly believe
that barring anything that is just an absolute unknown out of left field by
late afternoon tomorrow we're going to set the antenna down on a certified
foundation at the high site we're going to plug it in it's going to operate just
like it was operating here at the test facility the engineering team performs
critical tests to make sure no mistakes happen during the real thing
the success of the move hinges on the electrical connections between the 11
million dollar antenna and the specialized transporter that will haul
it into the high desert the Alma transporters are engineering Marvel's
custom built by Alma's European partner these two 33 foot wide 66 foot long
behemoths are designed to carry loads in excess of 100 tons
they're 28 wheels have independent drivin steering control allowing them to
maneuver to within millimeters of a specific spot the transporter drivers
are equally specialized there are fewer than a dozen people in the world
licensed to operate these precision monster trucks drivers steer from the
transporters main cab
then use a specialized remote control from a distance when making fine
movements the transporters will be used throughout the observatory's lifespan to
move the antennas for maintenance and to reposition them in the finished array at
Alma's Lowe site preparations for the antenna move are going smoothly but then
the team encounters a problem
a vital electric current is not reaching the main receiver cabinet
we did not find a 24-volt connection between the antenna the transporter that
24 24 volt source is very critical and communication between the antenna and
the transporter
without this connection the emergency stops that cut power to the transporter
will not function
five hours later the engineers are almost a half day behind schedule and
additional tests still need to be completed the lead scientists call an
emergency meeting to discuss the situation if there is a fire you are we
gonna get some alarm going on the team makes a difficult decision they will
proceed as planned with all safety personnel on high alert
the 25 mile road that snakes its way through the mountains up to the Chuck
non-core plateau is the observatories most dangerous feature the steep slopes
require hairpin turns and high embankments
the road is especially hazardous for the heavy trucks whose drivers must breathe
the thin air to take supplies up and down
Alma's personnel take every precaution possible but mishaps still occur since
construction began there have been 33 major accidents three of them fatal
with a historic antenna move only hours away the risks are very real at Alma's
low site nearly 30 years of work is about to culminate in a single day about
the way a condition a wind air increase around 11 we are worried to leave from
here as early as possible for obtain the best condition for this moment
project engineers prepare to move the first North American antenna 7,000 feet
up into the Chilean Andes with so much at stake there's tension in the cold
desert air one challenge that we have no control over is going to be the weather
the wind and the chance of a snow out and we get halfway up the hill and we've
got to either part or turn around and come back already up against the clock
the team performs final safety checks
driver Luis Roja positions the transporter with careful precision
115 tonnes of antennae are lifted into the air including the transporter the
total weight is nearly 250 tonnes rescue teams in front and behind guide the
transporter up the mountainside at the ready in case of a mishap to protect the
antenna maximum speed is restricted to 12 miles per hour they will have five
hours to reach the top
on the plateau above desert winds are already reaching dangerous speeds
part of the team arrives in advance to brave the sandstorm and keep the antenna
pad drill holes free of sediment even a small buildup of dirt it could prevent
the antenna from locking correctly to the pad
on the steep slopes below progress is slowed by repeated stops for safety
checks finally the antenna makes its way for the first time on to the moon scape
of the Chuck Nagpur plateau the dust storm is now in full force after 25
miles of steady climbing the most critical step remains setting the
antenna down in 55 mile-per-hour winds Lewis directs the transporter with
careful precision
and locks the antenna into position on the first try
yesterday the critical power transfer failed this time it works
today's a very momentous day for us basically it's the culmination of eight
months of activity on the antenna this is the real stepping stone for us to
completing the array
after decades of preparation Alma is mere months from its first large-scale
observations
October 2003 the aurora borealis or Northern Lights are seen as far south as
Texas but their beauty does not imply
celestial calm they signal a coronal mass ejection a load of charged
particles hurled by the Sun at more than 1,100 miles per second this one is so
strong it cuts power to more than 20,000 homes and knocks out communications
throughout the northern hemisphere it reminds us how little we know about our
closest star the Sun is a challenging object astronomically speaking for
astronomers because it's so big and it's so bright Alma will study the sun's
chromis fear a violent layer of gas just above the visible surface helping us
understand and predict solar storms you need something that can look at very
bright objects but also can give you a lot of resolution because these regions
that you're interested in typically are quite small Alma can do that and it can
do it on short timescales so that's the important thing you'll get these movies
essentially of how these active areas develop it tells you about that space
weather environment and how these things do actually propagate into the earth and
and can affect our daily lives
light from the Sun and other objects is received and amplified at the front end
of each antenna
the telescope's back-end is where it is combined and processed for astronomers
to study to produce high resolution images the antennas must be precisely
synchronized using a device called an oscillator
the Alma local oscillator is the main tuner the entire array each antenna is
equipped with an oscillator for each receiver they are synced together via
hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable to one central oscillator that controls
the timing of the entire array the required precision is on the order of a
few femtoseconds femtoseconds isn't a word that I don't think I was even
familiar with before the project started it's so short a million times a million
times a thousand times smaller than a second in other words it's the time it
takes for light to travel the thickness of a sheet of paper with more than ten
miles between antennas an error of even a few thousandth of a millimeter could
ruin observations the enormous data stream from each antenna presents
another unique challenge one that requires a custom-built supercomputer
the Alma correlator
every antenna is producing 96 gigabits per second of data
night and day that's enough to fill up a DVD in less than a second in a personal
computer you have one or two or sometimes four processors and all the
data that you're working on has to go through a processor be worked on and
manipulated and come out the other end in this machine we have a hundred and
twenty eight million processors built and tested in Charlottesville Virginia
the correlator is the most powerful supercomputer in the civilian world it
would have cost about a billion dollars worth of pcs to do the arithmetic that
this machine does so it was clear that we had to build a special machine to do
the calculations the correlator is housed at the technical building at the
high site to minimize its distance from the antennas
it will handle some 17 quadrillion calculations every second and provide
astronomers with 800 gigabytes of new data each day
with the correlator and three antennas now installed Alma is ready for its
initial test as a working telescope for the scientists it's a critical milestone
in paving the way for large-scale observations we should be able to be
actually began the commissioning process of the telescope as an integrated unit
not just testing individual antennas which is what we've been doing up until
now I mean there are many telescopes around the world that are bigger or
similar size to an individual Amman tena but today we start working with the
antennas all working together they will now move on to testing the telescope's
abilities as a tool for cutting-edge astronomy a tool that will search the
cosmos for the building blocks of life
in the quest to understand our place in the universe we are inching ever closer
to some of the biggest breakthroughs in all of science within the last several
years astronomers have found a number of planets that could Harbor life but the
secrets of how life begins are likely shrouded with in the cold gas and dust
of interstellar space a realm we've only begun to explore well the common thought
was that there's no way molecules would ever be able to form in the very harsh
conditions of interstellar space you have large amounts of ultraviolet flux
x-ray flux cosmic rays newly forming stars creating shock waves that travel
throughout the interstellar medium all these things are going on in these
environments and still large organic molecules and molecules that make up
life are forming than they're forming in large abundances in these environments
the solar system in these planetary systems had to form out of this
circumstellar material that contains all these different organic molecules so
we're all made of the interstellar medium that is floating between the
stars
at the University of Virginia's Center for chemistry of the universe a team of
enterprising scientists is figuring out how complex molecules form in space a
science called astrochemistry using a specially designed reaction chamber they
recreate the extreme conditions of interstellar space well what you
shouldn't really feel bad about the molecules that were putting into the
chamber back there we're not torturing them but what we're trying to do is get
them to react from stops of known chemicals they are creating new
molecules every line here is a molecule many of these molecules that are formed
have never been seen before ever
astro chemists are building a database of ever more complex molecules that
astronomers can use to identify new chemicals they find in space these
experiments will guide almost scientists in their quest to answer the age-old
question are we alone what we're going to be able to do now with Alma is to
make chemical maps and this could have a lot of different implications especially
for astrobiology or we actually want to see where do the organic molecules the
molecules that make up life where do they actually form in these regions of
newly forming stars astrobiology might actually evolved into astrogeology or
Astro botany we're actually studying plants and animals on other planetary
systems and it's very exciting to say that we're actually starting at first
step starting now
hi in the Atacama Alma is preparing to open a new window on the cosmos nine
antennas now stand ready to make the highest resolution millimetre
observations in history tonight the team will focus the array on the star T W
Hydra to find hard evidence of planet formation T W Hydra is very young solar
system information we see signatures in T W Hydra then suggest the existence of
planets what we need Alma for is to really hammer down and say you know this
is really a planet orbiting this star it's cleared out this this gap in that
disc t do be Hydra is so much better for this because it's three times closer
than anything else we have so we've got a little while to wait before we can
look at the phase calibrator but it looks like the the operator turns all
nine antennas on the young star and opens their apertures
as the light from space floods in the antennas stay locked in precise
synchronization
and the correlator churns out a steady stream of entirely new data from space
the observation is a success at two hours it is the telescope's longest to
date with so much data it takes the team the rest of the night to make actual
pictures
Alma's images are computerized interpretations of the telescope's data
different colors represent varying intensities of light even these early
images show previously hidden details one of the things that it's obvious to
us just looking at this straight off the bat you would expect it to be a little
bit brighter in the middle so there's a hint of some depression this depression
is further evidence that a newborn planet is just forming in the disk
clearing out a path of matter as it grows in size
as Alma continues to add antennas and add capabilities we'll be able to get
not only more sensitive imaging we'll be able to get the higher resolution which
will mean that we'll see finer detail and it's just opening the door we're
just gonna blow everything out of the water that's been done I mean it's gonna
be so much more fabulous in terms of what we can get out of it that it's
really sort of a new horizon
as work continues and Alma steadily grows in size and complexity the
landscape of astronomy is beginning to change forever
with each new antenna we get a clearer picture of the story of the universe and
our place within it
even in well-known regions of space astronomers are uncovering new worlds of
knowledge showing us where we come from and undoubtedly confronting a host of
entirely new questions astronomy is unique and a science and that we can use
it to understand where we came from nature is cleverer than we are just when
you think you know everything you have a surprise every single field you can
think of from her solar system to star formation of all masses and our galaxy
and nearby galaxies to detecting even light from the first stars that formed I
don't think there's any field of astronomy that will remain untouched by
the advent of formal the big question is how many solar systems turn out like our
room where we have habitable planets like Earth how often does that happen
and what are the processes that make that happen almost really going to break
this field open named Alma in Spanish means soul when
Alma is doing is looking at the soul of the stars
Algirdas internationalist nacionales recognizes a localize it is an honor for
me to welcome you to the ceremony in which will inaugurate the Atacama Large
millimeter/submillimeter Array known as Alma after 30 years of planning and more
than a decade of construction the Alma telescope is inaugurated in the presence
of world leaders foreign dignitaries and scientists who have dedicated much of
their lives to this accomplishment thank you very much International Space
Station as we look down upon a magnificent Atacama Desert high in the
Chilean Andes we can see the results of an immense effort by the nations of the
world to study the universe in new ways we congratulate the scientific
communities of North America and Europe and East Asia on today's achievement all
the very best to you and enjoy your new discoveries
at the array operations site the full complement of antennas has endured some
of the harshest conditions on earth while undergoing routine maintenance and
frequent upgrades the first full-scale observations are already changing our
understanding of the cosmos and taking us deep into new areas of space 450
light years from us in the constellation Taurus two newly born stars revolve
about each other in a binary system their brightness
obscures planet-forming disks encircling the stars but when observed in
millimetre and submillimetre light using Alma the disks shine as bright or even
brighter than the stars in the clearest ever image of the system astronomers
discovered that the planet-forming disks are surprisingly misaligned with their
stars orbital planes and likely stay off-kilter for the rest of their lives
closer to us at around 175 million light years the star T W hide ray is revealing
even more about the birth of our solar system this time in the form of
something never seen before in a planetary disc snow by imaging molecules
normally destroyed in the presence of carbon monoxide gas astronomers using
Alma were able to infer a snow line of frozen carbon monoxide particles
encircling the star at a distance of 2.6 billion miles the first ever image of
this phenomenon supports theories that snow lines contribute to planetary
formation much as they may have done nearly 5 billion years ago in our own
solar system
these remarkable discoveries and many others have been made with Alma's
antennas close together recently the telescope was reconfigured for the first
time to allow long baseline observations and the increased resolution resulted in
a remarkable and unexpected discovery
returning to the constellation Taurus in the distant dust clouds surrounding the
star HL Tauri astronomers captured stunning evidence of how planets may
form in an extremely high-resolution image the first time I saw this image I
thought it was actually probably a simulation it was just way too good this
star HL Tauri was about a million years old and as we look at the star with the
Alma telescope we see gaps in the radio emission in this dish that's orbiting
the star and quite likely those gaps are being caused by planetesimals young
planets which are forming around this time this is really I think the first
example of the type of science that Alma will be doing for many many years now it
could be that as we look at more objects like HL Tauri we're going to see more
complex discs we will actually at the higher frequencies may be able to see
the actual planets causing the gaps in the Rings so it's an incredibly exciting
time and it's the start of a long journey for helmet
you
we got you a TV picture here now at one
but diet please