What's So Special About This Telescope?

The human eye can only see a small portion of the light within the Universe. But the elements of the Cosmos emit in a wide range of wavelengths. Thus, it has been only through engineering that scientists have been able to see the light that our eyes can't see.

In this episode, the Italian radio frequency engineer Giorgio Siringo explains how ALMA has made it possible to see a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that was hidden from us until recently and why scientists from all over the world want to come to the Atacama Desert, the driest nonpolar desert of the world, to do their researches.