The EHT project produced the first direct image of a black hole. ĪPEX is also involved in the Global mm- VLBI Network and in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Recent APEX observations lead to the first ever discovery of hydrogen peroxide in space, the first image of a dusty disc closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as their smaller brethren, and the first direct measurements of the size and brightness of regions of star-birth in a very distant galaxy. Among the many new findings published then, most in the field of star formation and astrochemistry, are the discovery of a new interstellar molecule and the detection of light emitted at 0.2 mm from CO molecules, as well as light coming from a charged molecule composed of two forms of hydrogen.
No fewer than 26 articles based on early science with APEX were published in July 2006 in a special issue of the research journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Its first results proved the telescope lives up to the ambitions of the scientists by providing access to the "cold Universe" with unprecedented sensitivity and image quality. ĪPEX science goals include studying the formation of stars, planets, and galaxies, including very distant galaxies in the early Universe, and the physical conditions of molecular clouds. This wavelength range is also ideal for studying some of the earliest and most distant galaxies in the Universe, whose light has been redshifted into these longer wavelengths. Seen in visible light, these regions of the Universe are often dark and obscured due to the dust, but they shine brightly in the millimetre and submillimetre part of the spectrum. Astronomers use this light to study the chemical and physical conditions in these molecular clouds - the dense regions of gas and cosmic dust where new stars are being born.
It is ideal for studying the "cold Universe": light at these wavelengths shines from vast cold clouds in interstellar space, at temperatures only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. Submillimetre astronomy is a relatively unexplored frontier in astronomy and reveals a Universe that cannot be seen in the more familiar visible or infrared light. The operation of APEX on Chajnantor is entrusted to ESO.ĪPEX instrument for finding water in the Universe. The telescope was designed and constructed by the German firm VERTEX Antennentechnik GmbH, under contract by MPIfR. ĪPEX is a collaboration between the German Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) at 50%, the Swedish Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) at 23%, and the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) at 27%. Chajnantor was chosen as the location for such a telescope because the region is one of the driest on the planet and is more than 750 m higher than the observatories on Mauna Kea and 2400 m higher than the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal. Submillimetre astronomy provides a window into the cold, dusty and distant Universe, but the faint signals from space are heavily absorbed by water vapour in the Earth's atmosphere. APEX is designed to work at sub-millimetre wavelengths, in the 0.2 to 1.5 mm range - between infrared light and radio waves - and to find targets that ALMA will be able to study in greater detail. The APEX telescope is a modified ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) prototype antenna and is at the site of the ALMA observatory. The telescope was officially inaugurated on September 25, 2005. The main dish has a diameter of 12 m and consists of 264 aluminium panels with an average surface accuracy of 17 micrometres ( rms). The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment ( APEX) is a radio telescope 5,064 meters above sea level, at the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, 50 km east of San Pedro de Atacama built and operated by 3 European research institutes.
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