The National Science Council (NSC) and Academia Sinica yesterday announced that an international astronomy project, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), an array of radio telescopes located in Chile, in which Taiwan has participated, was launched on Thursday.
The ALMA project is an international project including countries from Europe, North America and East Asia, in cooperation with Chile. The project has installed 66 high-precision antennas with 12m and 7m diameter radio telescopes, which are capable of observing at wavelengths of between 0.3mm and 9.6mm, on the Chajnantor Plateau 5,000m above sea level in northern Chile.
Wang Jye-ming (王杰明), research fellow and deputy director of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said the high resolution and sensitivity of the array is expected to provide insights on planet formation, star births during the early universe or even the origin of life and the solar system.
Photo: EPA
“As an example, the power of the ALMA’s high resolution is like being able to use a telescope at Kenting (墾丁) in Pingtung County to observe a coin or a ladybug on the tip of Taipei 101,” Wang said, adding that the ALMA’s resolution is about 10 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Taiwanese research team’s contribution to the ALMA project is mainly on the East Asia Front-End Integration Center — integrating the front-end components into front-end assemblies and testing all the integrated front-end assemblies before they are delivered to Chile, as well as having built two Front-End Service Vehicles.
The ALMA project began calls for academic research project proposals in late 2011, and Taiwan’s research teams acquired 10 projects in the first year and 14 projects last year, Wang said.
NSC Minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) said that because Taiwan would cover about 5 percent of the project’s total cost until 2016, the approval rate of Taiwanese research teams’ proposals for academic research with the ALMA had been about 7 or 8 percent since 2011, showing international recognition of Taiwan’s research and execution abilities.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS