On Saturday, October 26, Mitaka Open House Day 2019 was held at the NAOJ Mitaka Campus. The open house day is an annual event to open the NAOJ research facilities to the public and convey the latest developments in the field of astronomy with exhibitions, lectures and other enjoyable experiences presented by various projects. In spite of the continued rain on the previous day, Saturday was blessed with perfect sunny fall weather that attracted a larger number of visitors than usual.
ALMA exhibitions at the lobby of the ALMA buildingCredit: NAOJ
The ALMA mini-lectures and short talks were presented by 8 researchers who talked about the latest ALMA scientific results as given below:
・”The Human Race Becomes the Witness to the Planet Formation” by Tetsuo Hasegawa (Distinguished Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project)
・ “The Discovery of a Monster Galaxy Dating Back Ten Billion Years” by Daisuke Iono (Associate Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project)
・”The Development of the New Eye Aiming to Explore the Invisible Universe” by Alvaro Gonzalez (Associate Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project )
・”How ALMA Contributed to Capturing the First Image of a Black Hole” by Hiroshi Nagai (Project Associate Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project )
・”The Joint ALMA Observatory- the Frontline of the ALMA Project-” by Shun Ishii (Assistant Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project)
・”Great River in the Primeval Universe (Gas Filaments of the Cosmic Web)” by Yuichi Matsuda (Assistant Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project )
・”Mechanism of the Radio Telescope” by Masaaki Hiramatsu (Assistant Professor at the NAOJ ALMA Project)
・”Measuring the Mass of Dark Matter, Black Holes, and Dark Energy” by Takafumi Tsukui (a graduate student at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI))
A speaker giving a Short TalkCredit: NAOJ
For the event this year, the ALMA project presented a new attraction called “ALMA Telescope Quiz”. At the entrance, visitors receive a quiz sheet and start answering the six printed questions while walking around poster exhibitions. When all questions have been answered, visitors can get a special ALMA stamp mark on the upper right corner of the sheet. While seeking answers of the quiz, people can learn more about ALMA in an enjoyable way.
ALMA Quiz Sheet 2019Credit: NAOJ
Although the pre-open day scheduled for Friday the 25th was rained out, we could successfully stage the event on Saturday the 26th as planned. We thank all the visitors for coming to our Open House Day and hope this event helped make ALMA and radio astronomy more accessible to all of you. We greatly appreciate your continued support for the ALMA project.
ALMA staff explaining poster exhibition to visitorsCredit: NAOJ
