ALMA at the ready

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) uses 66 antennas to study the cool Universe — molecular gas and dust as well the distant Universe. ALMA is studying the building blocks of stars, planetary systems, galaxies and life itself. The two ALMA transporters, huge, yellow custom-built vehicles which can pick up and move the 100-tonne ALMA antennas and reposition them with millimetric precision, are used to move antennas into optimal configurations for observations.