Moving giants

One of the giant dishes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) travels along a path through the Atacama Desert, carried by one of the ALMA transporters, two custom-built vehicles capable of moving and repositioning the 100-tonne antennas with millimetric precision. Being able to move the dishes and rearrange them within the array gives ALMA a powerful "zoom" feature. It also means the dishes can be transported to the Operations Support Facility (OSF) to undergo maintenance when required.