{"id":81799,"date":"2018-08-17T11:04:31","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T18:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/first-science-with-almas-highest-frequency-capabilities"},"modified":"2018-08-17T11:04:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T18:04:31","slug":"first-science-with-almas-highest-frequency-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/first-science-with-almas-highest-frequency-capabilities","title":{"rendered":"First science with ALMA\u2019s highest-frequency capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/first-science-with-almas-highest-frequency-capabilities.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The ALMA telescope in Chile has transformed how we see the universe, showing us otherwise invisible parts of the cosmos. This array of incredibly precise antennas studies a comparatively high-frequency sliver of radio light: waves that range from a few tenths of a millimeter to several millimeters in length. Recently, scientists pushed ALMA to its limits, harnessing the array\u2019s highest-frequency (shortest wavelength) capabilities, which peer into a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that straddles the line between infrared light and radio waves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHigh-frequency radio observations like these are normally not possible from the ground,\u201d said Brett McGuire, a chemist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, and lead author on a paper appearing in the <i>Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/i>. \u201cThey require the extreme precision and sensitivity of ALMA, along with some of the driest and most stable <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/atmospheric+conditions\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">atmospheric conditions<\/a> that can be found on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Under ideal atmospheric conditions, which occurred on the evening of 5 April 2018, astronomers trained ALMA\u2019s highest-frequency, submillimeter vision on a curious region of the Cat\u2019s Paw Nebula (also known as NGC 6334I), a star-forming complex located about 4,300 light-years from Earth in the direction of the southern constellation Scorpius.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-08-science-alma-highest-frequency-capabilities.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018&#45;08-science-alma-highest-frequ...ities.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ALMA telescope in Chile has transformed how we see the universe, showing us otherwise invisible parts of the cosmos. This array of incredibly precise antennas studies a comparatively high-frequency sliver of radio light: waves that range from a few tenths of a millimeter to several millimeters in length. Recently, scientists pushed ALMA to its [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}