Astronomers observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) the center of a relatively nearby galaxy known as NGC 253, which produces stars at a very high rate. With more than 300 hours of observation, they detected more than one hundred molecular species, far more than previous studies outside the Milky Way have detected. The high sensitivity of ALMA successfully detected molecules representing various stages of star evolution in the central region of NGC 253, and the high angular resolution of ALMA resolved the locations where these stages are taking place. This wealth of data has allowed astronomers to understand better the physics and chemistry of this kind of galaxy. The wideband sensitivity upgrade as a part of the ALMA 2030 Development roadmap will make wide-frequency observations like this study much more efficient. We expect that the understanding of the starburst mechanism will advance through the simultaneous observation of more tracer molecules.
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The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) -the largest astronomical project in existence- is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed of 66 high precision antennas located in northern Chile. ALMA is an international partnership of ESO (Europe), NSF (U.S) and NINS (Japan) together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile We love the Cosmos!