Norio Kaifu, NAOJ Director, talks about ALMA

10 May, 2013 / Read time: 1 minute

Interview with the then Director of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Norio Kaifu, after attending a meeting of ALMA project partners in Kyoto in March 2006. 

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an initiative that was made possible thanks to the international collaboration in which NAOJ participates as representative of East Asia. This partnership has enabled the construction of the facilities on the Chajnantor Plateau and in Santiago, Chile, in addition to the state-of-the-art technology that makes ALMA a unique radio telescope in the world. 

Of the 66 antennas that make up the observatory, Japan has provided four 12-meter diameter antennas and twelve 7-meter diameter antennas, as well as a correlator that allows these 16 antennas to be used as a sub-array. Initially called the Atacama Compact Array (ACA), this group of antennas was eventually named the Morita Array, in honor of professor and astronomer Koh-ichiro Morita, who was part of NAOJ until his sudden death in 2012.

Credits: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)