ALMA telescope turns 10: Here's to many more years of exciting scientific discoveries!

ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, i.e. March 13. Made of 66 high-precision antennas that can be arranged in different configurations to provide a wide range of observing modes, ALMA is the most powerful telescope for observing the cool Universe.

Since its inauguration in March 2013, ALMA has made many groundbreaking discoveries in fields such as protoplanetary disks, and Einstein Rings, among others. Its observations have provided unprecedented views of the cosmos and have led to many new insights into the workings of the universe.

Here are some key things to know about ALMA on its 10th anniversary:

• The ALMA observatory is a partnership between the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.
• It is located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile - one of the driest places on Earth.
• The observatory comprises 66 antennas, 54 of them with 12-metre diameter dishes, and 12 smaller ones, with a diameter of 7 metres each.
• ALMA's antennas are designed to survive the hardships of Chajnantor, which is one of the driest regions on the planet
• ALMA probes the sky at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, which are ideal for studying the colder and denser regions of the universe.
• A super-computer, the ALMA Correlator, combines the signals from all the antennas & generates astronomical data
• The observatory generates 6TB of data a day

One of the most recent discoveries made by ALMA was announced earlier this week. The telescope helped astronomers detect gaseous water - at least 1200 times the amount of water in all Earth's oceans - in the planet-forming disc around the star V883 Orionis. According to the researchers, the water carries a chemical signature that explains the journey of water from star-forming gas clouds to planets and supports the idea that water on Earth is even older than our Sun.