ALMA expands its power into global interferometry

During 2015 the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) was linked with other millimetre-wavelength telescopes in Europe and North America in a series of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations.

In VLBI, data from two or more telescopes are combined to form a single, virtual telescope that spans the geographic distance between them. The most recent of these experiments with ALMA and other telescopes formed an Earth-sized telescope with extraordinarily fine resolution.

This map shows some of the radio telescope facilities across the globe that were involved.