A scientific team managed to capture the highest resolution image taken by the Atacama Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), located in the Chilean desert. Astronomers photographed a massive star within our galaxy, the Milky Wayin its last stage of evolution.
“This remarkable achievement in high-resolution imaging through ALMA’s advanced capabilities marks a significant milestone in our quest to understand the universe,” Yoshiharu Asaki, lead author of the study, said in a statement. Space.com.
“The success of high-resolution observation in Band 10 shows our commitment to innovation and reinforces ALMA’s position as a leader in astronomical discoveries. “We are excited about the new possibilities for the scientific community,” adds Asaki.
The star in question is called R Leporis and is located in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. It is located about 1,350 light years away from Earth.
The historic milestone for ALMA was achieved through the use of a calibration technique called the “band-to-band method.” This is a modality in which atmospheric fluctuations are compensated for by a gauge of low-frequency radio waves, while the star is viewed using high-frequency radio waves.
“Achieving this unparalleled resolution through the band-to-band method has pushed ALMA’s capabilities to their absolute limit, opening a new window for astrophysics. This allows astronomers to investigate phenomena with a precision that was previously out of our reach,” adds Antonio Hales, deputy director of the ALMA Regional Center in North America and part of the scientific team in the same statement.
He Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical observatory located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It is the largest astronomical project in the world, with an estimated cost of 1.2 billion dollars. The telescope is made up of 66 antennas measuring 12 meters in diameter, which work together to create a single image with unprecedented resolution.