10 years after its inauguration, ALMA relaunches ALMA Kids

8 August, 2024 / Read time: 3 minutes

Did you know that you are made of stardust? Or that the core of the Sun has a temperature of around 15 million degrees Celsius? Kids.alma.cl, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) website specially developed for children is back to stimulate knowledge about the world's largest observatory and unravel the mysteries of the Universe.

A decade after its creation, this fun and educational space is available again after being affected by a cyber attack that hit the observatory two years ago. As part of the celebrations for Children's Day, ALMA invites girls and boys to explore again with Talma and Matías, the protagonists of the site, and discover the various topics that modern astronomy investigates thanks to this incredible radio telescope. On this website, young explorers will learn that ALMA can observe the birth of new stars and help reveal the entire history of our Universe, solving questions raised by the astronomical community through its unique precision and sensitivity.

The relaunch of the ALMA mini-site for kids was celebrated at the offices in Santiago. Students from the Isla de Marchant school in Curicó participated, enjoying interactive activities such as a visit to the Remote Antenna Control Room and educational experiments on the various ways of observing the Cosmos.

As part of this relaunch, kids.alma.cl now features new educational resources, including video tutorials that teach how to make your own ALMA antenna and antenna transporter out of paper. In addition, they will learn how to create a comet at home!

This mini-site is available in Spanish and English, and, thanks to a joint effort with the National Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, it is also available in Japanese and Chinese! In this way, ALMA is expanding its reach to millions of children and adults, providing them with an educational and fun tool to learn about the Universe.

Additional Information

ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), NSTC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.

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