​The main mission of the Nordic ARC node, based at Onsala Space Observatory, is to provide ALMA support services to astronomers in the Nordic (Denmark/Finland/Iceland/Norway/Sweden) and Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) countries, and in general to help and encourage the community to make the best use of ALMA. More specifically, ARC node services include e.g. face-to-face support for proposal preparation, observing setups, projects status follow-up, data reduction (CASA software), and access to archives.
The Nordic ARC node is part of the European ALMA Regional Centre.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, is the largest astronomical project in existence. ALMA is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed initially of 66 high precision antennas located on the Chajnantor plateau, 5000 meters altitude in northern Chile. It will enable transformational research into the physics of the cold Universe, probe the first stars and galaxies, and directly image the formation of planets.