On April 1, 2012, the NAOJ Chile Observatory was established as a center of NAOJ’s research activities in Chile. Since April 2000, the NAOJ ALMA Project Office has driven the East-Asian ALMA project at the construction phase; from now on, the Chile Observatory will take the project forward into the operation phase with the start of scientific observation last September. At the NAOJ headquarters in Mitaka, the ALMA Division was organized as a subdivision of the NAOJ Chile Observatory to support the construction, operation, and maintenance of ALMA, which oversees the East-Asian ALMA Regional Center to provide support for ALMA users. The Chile Observatory is also in charge of operation of ASTE, a 10-m submillimeter telescope located in the Atacama Desert together with ALMA.

For details of the NAOJ Chile Observatory and Organization, see Organization/NAOJ Chile Observatory and Organization/NAOJ Chile Observatory Management .

[Photographed by Tetsuo Hasegawa]