By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Llano de Chajnantor,
Chile Away in the distance, I can see a volcano spewing
sulphurous fumes. Under foot, the earth is so dry few plants can
survive in it. The Alma array of 64 antennas will offer an
unprecedented view And here, at an altitude of 5,300m, the
atmospheric pressure is halfway between sea level and the vacuum
of space. The scarcity of oxygen means that visitors need to
inhale regularly from canisters of O2. Llano de Chajnantor, a
plateau high in the Chilean Andes, is the sort of extreme
environment where humans really shouldn't venture. But to
astronomers, it is prime real estate. Chajnantor has been chosen
as the site for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (Alma), a
major telescope array that aims to illuminate one half of the
Universe that has hitherto been shrouded in darkness. It will be
able to observe some of the first galaxies to form after the Big
Bang, and catch planets in the act of forming around young
stars. "We expect to produce pictures of