干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Although the richness of the millimeter/submillimeter sky has been known for the last two decades, precision imaging of the sky has been impossible at all but the longest wavelengths. The Millimeter Array (MMA) will consist of 36 precision 10m antennas located above 5000m altitude in the Atacama Desert of Chile. It will apply aperture synthesis techniques for precision imaging of the cool thermal sky, particularly those objects which can now only be studied in the far infrared with coarse angular resolution. The MMA will offer unprecedented sensitivity-it will image a galaxy with the dust mass of the Milky Way at z=1 in one minute. The images the MMA will produce of this and high z systems will be high resolution images: the MMA will offer unprecedented angular resolution for imaging cool matter, providing images at a few hundredths arcsecond resolution. The MMA provides extinction-free spectroscopy of dusty high z systems. The MMA is currently under development; construction is scheduled to begin in 2001 with operations scheduled to begin in 2008.