We deeply regret that Professor Koh-Ichiro Morita passed away suddenly on May 7 (Chilean Time). We would like to extend our heartfelt condolences to his family.

Koh-ichiro Morita, a professor at the NAOJ Chile Observatory, was one of the world’s renowned scientists in the field of “aperture synthesis*”. He was engaged in the construction of the Nobeyama Millimeter Array in the 1980’s, and in the 2000’s he joined in the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) project, which is a global partnership of East Asia, Europe, and North America, in cooperation with the republic of Chile. He made a great contribution to designing the configuration of 16 antennas composing the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) manufactured by Japan, as well as to realizing high-resolution and high-quality imaging at millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths to further enhance the performance of ALMA. In 2010, he became a member of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) in Chile and served as leader of an international team of scientists to carry out system verification and evaluation of ALMA.

His sudden passing was a huge loss to everyone that knew him and all the ALMA project staff share the deep sadness. Abiding by his will, we reaffirm our determination to move forward, wishing his soul may rest in peace.

* Aperture synthesis: an interferometric technique to achieve high resolution by making a single virtual telescope with multiple antennas.

In honor of Professor Koh-ichiro Morita, the flags of the ALMA partnership were flown at half-mast at the ALMA Operations Support Facility (OSF) at 2900 m asl.

The picture below shows Professor Koh-Ichiro Morita, taken at his office in the Joint ALMA Observatory last September.