World's tallest observatory opens

Chile TAO Observatory is located on a 5,640 m high mountain, equipped with a 6.5 m diameter telescope to observe the universe using infrared rays.

The University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory (TAO) is built on top of a mountain in the Atacama Desert. Photo: University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory Project

The University of Tokyo's Atacama Astronomical Observatory, or TAO, officially opened, becoming the tallest observatory on Earth, Space reported on May 1. The project was conceived 26 years ago with the goal of studying the evolution of galaxies and exoplanets. The project is located on the 5,640-meter-high Cerro Chajnantor mountain in the Chilean Andes, surpassing the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope system with a height of 5,050 meters.

Cerro Chajnantor means “place of departure” in the Kunza language of the indigenous Likan Antai people. The high altitude, thin air, and year-round arid climate of the area pose a danger to humans, but it is ideal for infrared telescopes like TAO because the precision of the observations requires low humidity, which makes the Earth’s atmosphere transparent at infrared wavelengths.

TAO's 6.5-meter telescope consists of two scientific instruments designed to observe the universe in infrared light — electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than microwaves.

The first instrument, SWIMS, will take images of galaxies from the early universe to understand how they coalesced from pristine dust and gas. Many details of this process remain unclear, despite decades of study. The second instrument, MIMIZUKU, will study the primordial dust disks that formed stars and galaxies.

"The better the quality of astronomical observations of real objects, the more accurately we can reproduce what is seen with experiments on Earth," said Riko Senoo, a graduate student at the University of Tokyo.

"I hope the next generation of astronomers will use TAO and other space and ground telescopes to make unexpected discoveries, challenge current understanding, and explain the unexplained," said Masahiro Konishi, a researcher at the University of Tokyo.

Thu Thao (According to Space )

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