A 6-meter telescope on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, built in 2007 to make high-sensitivity, arcminute-resolution microwave surveys of the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation left by the Big Bang. The telescope's data was among the first to detect seven acoustic peaks in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background, and it operated until being succeeded by the Simons Observatory at the same high-altitude site.
Facts
Observatory TypeGround-based millimeter-wave telescope 1 LocationCerro Toco, Atacama Desert, Chile 1 MeasuresMicrowave-wavelength surveys of the cosmic microwave background at arcminute resolution. 1 Operating PrincipleObserves by holding the telescope at a constant elevation and scanning back and forth in azimuth at a relatively rapid rate of about two degrees per second. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, lead sectionQuote, Wikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, lead section
in order to study the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the relic radiation left by the Big Bang process
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, history sectionQuote, Wikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, history section
ACT was built in 2007 and saw first light in October 2007
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, observing strategy sectionQuote, Wikipedia: Atacama Cosmology Telescope, observing strategy section
the ACT observes the sky by keeping the telescope oriented at a constant elevation and by scanning back and forth in azimuth at the relatively rapid rate of two degrees per second
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