ALMA Receives Over 1700 Proposals for Next Observing Cycle

Astronomers from around the world have submitted a record 1712 proposals to observe with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) during its next observing cycle (Cycle 5). Cycle 5 runs between October 2017 and September 2018. The deadline for submitting a proposal was 15:00 UT on 20 April 2017.

A preliminary filtering process showed that 48 proposals were duplications, reducing the number of unique ones to 1665. All complete proposals will be evaluated and ranked at a meeting in Antwerp, Belgium, to be held between 18 and 23 June 2017.

During Cycle 5, it is expected that 56 ALMA antennas will be available at any one time for observations (46 12-metre antennas and 10 7-metre antennas). All ALMA receiver bands from 3 to 10 will also be available. The maximum baseline — distance between the antennas — will be 16 kilometres, giving ALMA, at its highest operating frequencies, an angular resolution of 0.018 arcseconds.

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ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory