New discoveries ALMA studies ‘pregnant’ clouds in the Milky Way

Welcome to the ALMA website for kids!

Discover the world's largest observatory with Talma and Mathias

Learn with Talma

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Where is Chajnantor?

ALMA is the biggest astronomical observatory on Earth. It was built by countries in North America, Europe and East Asia. You might expect that ALMA is located in one of these three continents. But you would be wrong. ALMA is in South America. The best place to build your...

Who build ALMA?

Since Hans Lipperhey built his first cheap telescope in his own workshop, telescopes became larger, and also more expensive. Sometimes, rich businessmen provided the money that was needed for the construction of big telescopes. Or universities worked together to build an astronomical observatory for common use, like the Mauna...

What are millimeter waves?

If your ears are good, you can hear very high tones. Children’s ears are usually better than the ears of grown-ups. So you might be able to hear very high-pitch sounds that your father or mother cannot hear. Even then, you can’t hear everything. If the tone is too...

Why are there 66 antennas?

Have you ever noticed that owls have big eyes? That’s because they live at night. During the dark, you need really big eyes to see anything at all. The bigger your eyes, the more light they collect. Bigger eyes are more sensitive. And there’s more. If your eyes are bigger,...

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New discoveries

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Thanks to thawing effect of stellar outburst, ALMA finds building blocks of life

ALMA has detected the building blocks of life in the disk surrounding a young, distant star. The discovery may help astronomers to understand the origin of life in our own solar system. Some 3.5 billion years ago, certain molecules teamed up to form the first living organisms on Earth...

Volcanoes produce almost half of the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Io

Astronomers using ALMA have discovered that the thin atmosphere of Io is largely due to its activevolcanoes. Io (pronounced EYE-oh) is a large moon of the giant planet Jupiter. Thanks to tidal forces from theplanet, it has a hot interior. The surface of Io is dotted with active volcanoes....

The Cow: a mysterious explosion in space

On Earth, more than 350 thousand babies are born each day. If you think that is a lot, take a look at our Universe. In space, more than 100 million stars are born each day. But recently, something mysterious was born, something that astronomers have never seen before. The...

Triple star stirs up its own protoplanetary disk

If a single star has planets, the planets usually orbit the star in a single plane. Such is the case in ourown solar system: the orbits of the planets are ‘aligned’, as astronomers say. If a close binary star has planets, the situation is different. The two stars can...

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