MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

World's major observatory in Chile

Chile signed last week the loaning during the next fifty years of 42,000 acres in the north of the country for the building of the world's major astronomy observatory, an undertaking that will demand over 550 million US dollars.

The European Austral Observatory, manned by Europeans and Americans is expected to begin some operations in 2006 and will have a radio-telescope capable of assessing radio-magnetic waves that reach the Earth after having travelled for millions of years in space.

The observatory named Atacama-ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre Array) will be located in Antofatasta, next to the Bolivian border, at a height of 5,000 meters surrounded with 64 antennas and 12 meter dishes, and capable of analyzing different milimetrical and sub-milimetrical cosmic wave lengths dating back to the "big bang".

Radio-telescopes can pierce into space areas in which cosmic dust absorbs optical light and impedes the action of optical telescopes. This theoretically will help study the formation of stars, black holes, evolution of galaxies, and carbon chemistry in space which could give clues as to how life began.

The high precision instant photos of ALMA will be similar to reading the value and engraving details of a small coin at a distance of 120 kilometres.

"We will be able to follow planets even before they are formed, and possibly how life arrived to our universe", said Eric Goles, president of the Chilean National Scientific Research and Technological Committee.

By the time ALMA is fully operational in 2010 "we could track star dust from the time the universe had only eight per cent of its current age", highlighted Mr. Goles.