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.
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) today released images of the military tracking China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) movements during the latest round of Chinese drills around Taiwan. The PLA began "Justice Mission 2025" drills today, carrying out live-fire drills, simulated strikes on land and maritime targets, and exercises to blockade the nation's main ports. The exercises are to continue tomorrow, with the PLA announcing sea and air space restrictions for five zones around Taiwan for 10 hours starting from 8:30am. The ministry today released images showing a Chinese J-16 fighter jet tracked by a F-16V Block 20 jet and the
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