ALMA front on

In total, 66 separate antennas combine to form ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array. Located around 5000 metres up in the Chilean mountains, ALMA is the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence. The antennas are provided by North America, Europe and East Asia — some of the Asian ones are shown here, looking forward and up.

The telescope scours the Universe in the radio range, studying the stunning, varied phenomena it has to offer.