Minami Takano, a senior at the Faculty of Knowledge Engineering, Tokyo City University won the Tokyo City University Alumni Association Award for her remarkable graduation research work using ALMA observation data.

The awarding ceremony at Tokyo City University held on March 19, 2018.

Under supervision of Daisuke Iono, an associate professor at the NAOJ Chile Observatory, Takano analyzed the data of the barred spiral galaxy NGC1808, which was observed with ALMA.

The studied galaxy is a starburst galaxy that is undergoing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation. Many researchers have been focusing on this object to analyze molecular gas which will be ingredients of stars. Studying molecular gas in galaxies will lead to a better understanding of star formation activities unfolding in galaxies and furthermore deeper understanding of the evolution process of galaxies.

Takano said, “I will never forget for the rest of my life the honor of having the opportunity to conduct research using the data of the world’s highest performance telescope ALMA. The barred spiral galaxy NGC1808 has become my precious friend through my research and this award. I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Associate Professor Daisuke Iono and graduate students for their warm and wonderful support.”

The observation data obtained with ALMA is kept in the ALMA data archive, which is open to anyone and free to download for research purpose. ALMA aims to maximize its scientific benefits and bring about various discoveries from a single observation by encouraging a wide range of researchers to carry out different data analyses from their unique perspectives utilizing ALMA’s huge reservoir of valuable observation data.