From October 21 through 22, Mitaka Open House Day was held at the NAOJ Mitaka Campus. The NAOJ Chile Observatory presented exhibitions of ALMA and ASTE telescopes introducing the observation sites on the Atacama highlands in Chile and the latest observation results.

This year’s ALMA mini-lecture covered new ALMA research achievements including solar observations and the birth of planets that was first observed with ALMA. The audience asked many questions to the speaker actively in the question and answer session after the lecture, showing their enthusiasm to learn more about ALMA.

Another attraction was a virtual tour to the ALMA site in Chile, which received good reaction from the visitors at the last year’s event too. Using a virtual reality (VR) headset, people can experience the path to the ALMA site from the gate at 2500 m to the Operations Support Facility (OSF) at 2900 m and to the Array Operations Site (AOS) at 5000 m, while seeing the images and movies taken by a 360-degree camera. Many people enjoyed the virtual tour to the ALMA site located on the other side of the earth which is difficult to visit from Japan.