Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope: How it works and top discoveries

Antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two companion galaxies to our own Milky Way galaxy, can be seen as bright smudges in the night sky, in the centre of the photograph.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a collection of radio telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert. 

ALMA detects radio emissions at short wavelengths ranging from 0.32 to 8.5 millimeters (a frequency of 950 to 35 GHz). Emission at these wavelengths comes from some of the coldest objects in space, such as interstellar gas clouds and nascent protoplanetary disks.