The Atacama skeleton

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) project is described. This multi-institution collaboration aims to produce arcminute-resolution and micro-Kelvin sensitivity maps of the microwave background temperature over 200 square degrees of the sky in three frequency bands. We give a brief overview of the scientific motivations for such a map, followed by a design outline of our six-meter custom tele...

The Atacama Compact Array System

The Atacama Desert Trek: Outcomes

In June and July 1997, Nomad, a planetary-relevant mobile robot, traversed more than 220 kilometers across the barren Atacama Desert in Chile, exploring a landscape analogous to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. In this unprecedented demonstration, Nomad operated both autonomously and under the control of operators thousands of kilometers away, addressing issues of robot configuration, communi...

The Atacama Surface Solar Maximum

S urface solar radiation is a major component of the surface heat budget. Diurnally and seasonally averaged over the entire Earth, 188 ± 7 W m–2 reach the surface to be either absorbed (~165 ± 6 W m–2) or reflected back to the atmosphere (Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012). Changes in the amount of solar radiation received at the surface are intrinsically tied to the total amount of p...

Science Autonomy in the Atacama

We have recently embarked on a three-year project, funded by the NASA ASTEP program, to develop robotic astrobiology in the process of learning the limits of life in the Atacama desert of Chile. We see this as an opportunity to develop a more science-aware rover: one that, on encountering a new area, can select interesting features, perform initial experiments, and selectively return relevant d...