almaThe Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), inaugurated in 2013: 66 radio antennas at an altitude of 5,000 metersalma
Chile, which boasts many of the best places on the planet from which to observe the sky, will be home to nearly 70% of the world’s telescopes by 2020, owing to $4 billion of investments by international consortia for just the four main observatories. Despite this scenario, however, Chilean astronomers are not happy about the limited benefit this arrangement brings to Chilean science. Only 10% of telescope time is reserved for Chilean institutions. “That figure is lower than in other locations, such as the Canary Islands, where 20% of the telescope time is reserved for observation by Spanish institutions, and at least 5% is hired out to Spanish engineers and technical specialists,” Monica Rubio, an astronomer at the University of Chile, told the SciDev.Net agency. Maximiliano Moyano, an astronomer at the Catholic University of the North, says that the 10% time block is becoming insufficient as young Chilean PhD astronomers trained in Europe return home. “Our universities should be involved in developing equipment used to modernize the observatories,” Rubio said.
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