High and dry on the Chajnantor plateau

High on the Chajnantor plateau in northern Chile the largest astronomical project in existence is taking shape. Shown here is the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) which is composed initially of 66 high precision antennas located 5000m high on the desert plateau. ALMA will be a single telescope of revolutionary design in an international partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.