Lions learn about ALMA

Don Davis, production assurance manager for the ALMA project at Vertex/General Dynamics, gave local Lions an insight into the future of astrological exploration and the part the local firm is playing in it's development. Jim Oubre is program chairman for the club this year. News Herald Photo by Brenda Allums Kilgore Lions Club members are more knowledgeable now about the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) than they were earlier in the week.

Don Davis, manager of production assurance for the ALMA program, explained the international project at the club's weekly meeting. Davis is employed by Vertex/General Dynamics, one of the contractors for the project.

"I've been involved in this program since 1999," he said.

ALMA is a project to develop a world-class telescope array to study the universe from a site in the foothills of Chile's Andes Mountains.

Vertex/General Dynamics and a European company were both award contracts to build radio telescopes that will operate at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.

"Japan may also become a partner, making this a truly global collaboration," Davis said.

Davis said ALMA eventually will be the largest ground-based astronomy project of the next decade.

"Together with the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), Alma is one of the two major new facilities for world astronomy possibly coming into operation by the end of the next decade," he said. "When completed (in 2011), ALMA will be the largest and most capable imaging array of telescopes in the world."

The project features 64 antennas located at the highest point in Chili.

"ALMA's location in the Atacama Desert is one of the highest, driest places on Earth, making it ideal for astronomical research at millimeter wavelengths, which are absorbed by atmospheric moisture," Davis said.

Davis said for observations at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths to be possible, the atmosphere above the telescope must be transparent.

"This requires a site that is high and dry, and a high plateau in the Atacama desert of Chile, probably the world's driest, is ideal the next best thing to outer space for these observations," he said.

Each of ALMA's antenna dishes will measure 12 meters wide. The ALMA antennas will be movable. At its largest, the array will measure 14 kilometers, and at its smallest, only 150 meters. Its receivers will cover the range from 30 to 950 GHz. The ALMA correlator, a specialized computer that combines the information received by the antennas, will perform 16,000 millionmillion (1.6x1016) operations per second.

"ALMA will detect and study the earliest and most distant galaxies, the beginning of the first light in the Universe," Davis said. "It will also look deep into the dust-obscured regions where stars are born to examine the details of star and planet formation.:

The array will make additional major contributions to virtually all fields of astronomical research.

Davis said Vertex/General Dynamics doesn't usually deal with one-of-a-kind satellite projects. Even though these are highly specialized, the company bid on the contract because of the number of units, 64, needed.

"The 64 units will work together as a single unit," he said. The units are being built at Vertex's Kilgore plant.

He said it's exciting to be a part of helping design components for the "most powerful, highest permanent astrological site in the world."