[mmaimcal] National Academy of Sciences Recommends Continued Support of ALMA

[Al Wootten]

Contact:
Rebecca Johnson, Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
804-296-0323
rjohnson at nrao.edu

May 19, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Academy of Sciences Recommends Continued Support of ALMA Project

A distinguished panel of scientists today announced their support for
the continued funding of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)
Project at a press conference given by the National Academy of Sciences.
The ALMA Project is an international partnership between U.S. and
European astronomy organizations to build a complete imaging telescope
that will produce astronomical images at millimeter and submillimeter
wavelengths. The U.S. partner is the National Science Foundation,
through Associated Universities, Inc., (AUI), led by Dr. Riccardo
Giacconi, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

"We are delighted at this show of continued support from our peers in
the scientific community," said Dr. Robert Brown, ALMA U.S. Project
Director and Deputy Director of NRAO. "The endorsement adds momentum to
the recent strides we've made toward the building of this important
telescope."

In 1998, the National Research Council, the working arm of the National
Academy of Sciences, charged the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey
Committee to "survey the field of space- and ground-based astronomy and
astrophysics" and to "recommend priorities for the most important new
initiatives of the decade 2000-2010."

In a report released today, the committee wrote that it "re-affirms the
recommendations of the 1991 Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee
by endorsing the completion of . . . the Millimeter Array (MMA, now part
of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array)." In the 1991 report "The Decade
of Discovery," a previous committee chose the Millimeter Array as one of
the most important projects of the decade 1990-2000.

Early last year, the National Science Foundation signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with a consortium of European organizations that
effectively merged the MMA Project with the European Southern
Observatory's Large Southern Array project. The combined project was
christened the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.

ALMA, expected to consist of 64 antennas with 12-meter diameter dishes,
will be built at a high-altitude, extremely dry mountain site in Chile's
Atacama desert. The array is scheduled to be completed sometime in this
decade.

Millimeter-wave astronomy studies the universe in the spectral region
where most of its energy lies, between the long-wavelength radio waves
and the shorter-wavelength infrared waves. In this realm, ALMA will
study the structure of the early universe and the evolution of galaxies;
gather crucial data on the formation of stars, protoplanetary disks, and
planets; and provide new insights on the familiar objects of our own
solar system.

"Most of the photons in the Universe lie in the millimeter wavelength
regime; among existing or planned instruments only ALMA can image the
sources of these photons with the crispness required to understand the
events of galaxy, star and planet formation which launched them into
space," said NRAO's Dr. Alwyn Wootten, U.S. ALMA Project Scientist.

ALMA is an international partnership between the United States (National
Science Foundation) and Europe. European participants include the
European Southern Observatory, the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (France), the Max-Planck Gesellschaft (Germany), the
Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy, the United Kingdom
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the Oficina de Ciencia
Y Tecnologia/Instituto Geografico Nacional (Spain), and the Swedish
Natural Science Research Council.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National
Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated
Universities, Inc.