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Business

Rivian’s Electric Truck Is a Cutie and a Beast

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The redoubtable Rivian R1T, the first crusher in a coming wave of electric pickup trucks, can soar unscathed over gnarly boulders, hitch an 11,000-pound load and scorch 60 m.p.h. in about 3.5 seconds. The truck brings everything and the kitchen sink, with outdoorsy options such as a rooftop tent and a track-mounted Camp Kitchen, which lets owners whip up a trail-side omelet and wash up afterward. And after its hot-starting initial public offering, Rivian is already valued at nearly $100 billion, more than such behemoths as Ford Motor and General Motors.

All good so far, for the company’s fingers-crossed shareholders, stakeholders (including Amazon and Ford) and 9,500 employees. Some consumers may still have a question: What in the world is a Rivian?

The R1T, now emerging from a former Mitsubishi factory in Illinois, must navigate that awkward getting-to-know-you stage, just as a then-obscure Tesla did with its Roadster in 2008 and Model S in 2012. Unlike Tesla, which created the electric vehicle market and once had it mostly to itself, Rivian faces immediate competition from G.M.’s 1,000-horsepower GMC Hummer EV pickup, and from a Ford F-150 Lightning — based on America’s best-selling vehicle for 39 straight years — set to arrive in spring. Tesla has pushed Texas production of its outré Cybertruck to sometime in 2022.

Rivian, based in Irvine, Calif., took 12 years to get to market, but its timing appears ideal. Pickup trucks continued to strong-arm market share as the pandemic hammered sales of traditional cars. A residential flight from big cities, such as New York’s exodus upstate, may have played a role. (Home project, meet pickup truck.) One in five vehicles sold in America is now a full- or midsize pickup, or well over three million sales in a normal year.

Where Ford’s Lightning appears to be a more conventional, task-oriented truck, the 16-inch-shorter Rivian is a born adventurer. A pioneer, too, proof that an electric four-by-four can tackle the most forbidding backcountry. This summer, an R1T successfully navigated the TransAmerica Trail, a roughly 5,000-mile crucible from North Carolina to the Oregon coast. If most buyers are content with only a dirt road to a cabin or campground, they can always dream.

Starting at $68,575, the Rivian becomes the market’s first E.V. to integrate four independent electric motors, each spinning at up to 18,500 r.p.m. That allows all manner of “torque vectoring” tricks, apportioning real-time power to any of four wheels to maximize performance. All while barely making a sound. “Tread lightly” is the mantra of any conscientious off-roader, and the Rivian eliminates a noisy internal combustion engine and its tailpipe spew.

“You can hear the stream trickling when you come down the trail — and the birds,” said Brian Gase, Rivian’s director of special projects.

Yet little will stand in the way of the R1T or its sport utility offshoot, the R1S. An adjustable air suspension and four off-road modes — Auto, Rock, Rally and Drift — allow up to 15 inches of ground clearance. That’s a stunning 4.2 inches more than a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, a touchstone of overland ability.

Move to city-slicker surfaces and this 835-horsepower beast will outrun or dance around any petroleum pickup I’ve tested, claiming a 3.0-second dash to 60 miles an hour. That’s despite a curb weight of nearly 7,150 pounds, about a ton more than a typical full-size gasoline pickup. This truck doesn’t defy physics so much as stage an open revolt.

The Rivian never feels quite that quick, and auto publications are finding 3.5 seconds to 60 m.p.h. is more like it. Even that is ridiculous acceleration for any bona fide four-by-four, let alone one that weighs as much as two BMW 330i sedans, and could tow three Bimmers at highway speed. Like most whispery E.V.s, the Rivian plays tricks with one’s somatic system. Without aural cues and frenzied pistons, a more-reliable calculus for forward progress is to watch small cars turn to smaller specks in the mirror.

On hilly roads girdling New York’s reservoirs, the Rivian carved up those BMWs and Benzes as if they were holiday turkeys, its clever hydraulic anti-roll system keeping the truck’s body as flat as a platter. A roughly 135-kilowatt-hour battery pack, shielded by composite underbody armor, provides up to 314 miles of range, as rated by the Environmental Protection Agency — reasonable, considering all that mass and drag. Switching into Conserve mode lowers the ride height and operates front-axle motors alone to save juice.

For an extra $10,000, a roughly 180-kilowatt-hour battery extends range past 400 miles. That bests the $112,595 Hummer EV, which should manage about 350 miles with its roughly 200-kilowatt-hour pack, the largest ever fitted to an electric vehicle. Rivian also plans to offer a more affordable 105-kilowatt-hour pack with a roughly 230-mile range.

The R1T’s brake pedal feels a bit squishy for my firmer tastes, but there’s no denying the truck’s awesome ability to shed speed. In objective testing, Edmunds.com found the Rivian set lofty new pickup records for stopping distance, acceleration and road-holding grip. Less-hurried owners can drive for hours or even days without ever brushing that brake pedal: A smartly chosen, driver-adjustable regenerative function allows effortless “one-pedal” driving to smoothly halt the truck by lifting off the accelerator.

For all its crushing strength, the Rivian is a cutie. Today’s pickup vogue, embodied by the Hummer or Cybertruck, is to resemble a Mechagodzilla, all stomping, fire-breathing menace. The Rivian’s oval, translucent LED eyes, clean lines and cheerful mien are more Iron Giant: rated for all ages, genders and personalities, not just Costco cosplayers in trucker hats.

The interior takes a safe path with the Apple-esque minimalism that is in vogue for E.V.s. A mite longer than midsize trucks, much shorter than full-sizers, the R1T offers a back seat comfortable for two or three adults. Most traditional switch gear is shorn in favor of controls on a 16-inch center touch screen, not always for the better.

Company representatives believe the cloud-based navigation system will handle directional tasks, and an 18-speaker Meridian audio system will play nicely with onboard apps such as Spotify, or link smartphones via Bluetooth. But the lack of available Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — standard fare on most budget cars — may demand a course correction.

Yet design, materials (including vegan leather and genuine ash wood) and craftsmanship are convincingly luxurious. And ingenuity rules. A portable Bluetooth speaker detaches from the center console, ready for campfire singalongs, with a 1,000-lumen flashlight in the driver’s door. USB ports and 110-volt outlets are sprinkled through the cabin and cargo bed. That bed features an electric tailgate, and an optional air compressor to “air down” tires for off-road exploration and refill them for the ride home. There’s no need to pack light: A big storage “frunk” rests below the hood and another beneath the 4.5-foot cargo bed, with a drain plug to double as an ice chest for tailgating.

The so-called Gear Tunnel will bore into outdoorsy hearts. This door-to-door abdominal cavity behind the passenger cab, made feasible by the lack of an internal-combustion drive shaft, swallows cargo or extras such as the optional, $5,000 Camp Kitchen. That à la carte item is not cheap. But unfurled from the Rivian, the industry-first unit will stop traffic at any tailgate bash or bonfire, with a two-burner convection cooktop, a collapsible sink with spray faucet and water tank, and a 30-piece Snow Peak kitchen set.

Now all Rivian needs to do is cook up sales. Like a baby Tesla, the company expects to burn through a few billion dollars before it can generate positive returns. Amazon owns a 20 percent stake — currently worth about $20 billion, more than five times its original investment — and has ordered 100,000 last-mile Rivian delivery vans through 2030. We will see if such fleet vans become Rivian’s side hustle or the main job.

Whichever electric truck early adopters prefer, one had best get a place in line. Ford says it has 160,000 customer reservations for its Lightning, but expects to build just 15,000 next year before rapidly expanding production. Rivian, in a federal filing, cited a backlog of 55,400 orders for the R1T and R1S.

Ford lowballed the Lightning’s starting price at roughly $42,000, but for a work version with a modest 230-mile range. Good luck finding one at dealers. A higher-volume Lightning XLT will start closer to $55,000, with a loaded Platinum edition brushing $90,000.

Ford (along with G.M.) touts massive scale, dealership networks and manufacturing experience, albeit in fossil-fueled trucks. Like Tesla, Rivian plans to forgo traditional showrooms in favor of direct sales in all 50 states. The company plans to open dozens of service centers in North America, but is also banking on remote diagnostics, over-the-air updates and mobile technicians who can service Rivians at homes, even when owners are away.

Either way, Ford can win: It owns 12 percent of Rivian, though it just dropped a plan to develop an E.V. in partnership with Rivian. Founded by R.J. Scaringe, Rivian hopes to fulfill its existing orders by the end of 2023, from a factory that can build 150,000 units a year.

Whatever else happens, Rivian can claim to be first mover in the electric truck space. From this electric David, the R1T lands an impressive first shot. Let’s see what the Goliaths do when they get off the mat.

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Science

‘Fearsome dragon’ skull reveals beast that terrorized Australia’s skies

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UInverarity of Queensland

A fearsome beast with wings spanning 22 feet. A mouth like a spear. The closest thing we’ve seen to a real-life dragon. 

That’s how Tim Richards describes the Thapunngaka shawi, a flying reptile whose fossils he’s been studying at the University of Queensland’s School of Biological Sciences. The pterosaur is believed to have once flown above the Australian outback — long enough ago that it was soaring above inland seas rather than desert.

“This thing would have been quite savage,” Richards, a PhD student, said. “It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn’t have heard it until it was too late.”

The name Thapunngaka shawi means “Shaw’s spear mouth,” with the latter half a reference to its discoverer Len Shaw. The genus name, Thapunngaka, is inspired by the now-extinct language of the Wanamara Nation, one of Australia’s First Nations peoples. 

Pterosaurs populated the earth as recently as 66 million years ago, before the asteroid death blast ended the dinosaurs’ reign, and as early as 228 million years ago. They’re distinguished for being the first vertebrae creature — that is, a creature with a spine — to take flight. The most famous pterosaur is the pterodacylus, which is why pterosaurs are often incorrectly known as pterodactyls.

Scientists still have much to learn about the ancient creatures. Research published in journal iScience in April showed the secret to pterosaurs’ physiology was its neck, longer than a giraffe’s and ingeniously arranged by Mother Nature to support their heavy heads during flight. Research published just last month suggests many pterosaurs were able to fly the moment they hatched from their eggs.

To allow for flight, pterodactyls often have bones that are thinner and more brittle than other dinosaurs. That makes such well-preserved fossils as the one Richards is studying rare. Based on the jaw fossils being studied, Richards estimates the skull alone would extend over 3.2 feet and hold 40 (terrifying) teeth. 

“By world standards, the Australian pterosaur record is poor, but the discovery of Thapunngaka contributes greatly to our understanding of Australian pterosaur diversity.”

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Technology

Intel The Unleashes NUC 11 Extreme ‘Beast Canyon’ With Enough Clearance For A Full-Length Graphics Card

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Intel has just released the NUC 11 Extreme ‘Beast Canyon’, and with this new generation, it packs even more power in a small chassis. The Beast Canyon comes equipped with the latest 11th gen Tiger Lake series processors and now supports a full-length graphics card.

The Intel NUC 11 Extreme ‘Beast Canyon’ Can Pack A Full-Length Graphics Card Alongside The Core i9-11900KB

The NUC 11 Extreme ‘Beast Canyon’ kit features an 8L chassis and the dimensions of the chassis are 357 x 189 x 120mm which now allows for full-length graphics cards to fit in the NUC thanks to the single PCIe 4.0 x16 expansion slot. The Beast Canyon features a 150W upgrade over the Ghost Canyon with a 650W 80 Plus Gold ITX power supply.

Intel Core i9-12900K ‘Alder Lake’ 16 Core Flagship CPU Up To 25% Faster Than AMD Ryzen 9 5950X ‘Zen 3’, Rumor Alleges

The processors inside the Beast Canyon are offerings from the Tiger Lake desktop series as well as an offering from the Tiger Lake-H series. The two desktop processors both come in at 8 cores and 16 threads and are the Intel Core i9-11900KB and the Core i7-11700B. The third and final processor option is the Core i5-11400H. Both of the desktop processors have a TDP of 65W and the mobile processor has a TDP of 45W. The only processor which can be overclocked is the Core i9-11900KB and has a boost clock of 4.9 GHz. The Beast Canyon NUC with the Intel Core i9-11900KB has been benchmarked.

The Beast Canyon takes advantage of the WM590 chipset which is specially designed for Tiger Lake processors and it supports up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 1.2V SO-DIMM memory. The Beast Canyon comes with four M.2 slots as well as two SATA 6Gbp slots. In terms of ports, it comes with six USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and one HDMI 2.0b port. It also features an extra PCIe 4.0 x4 expansion slot for add-in cards. The connectivity on the Beast Canyon includes 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet networking, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2.

The Intel NUC 11 Extreme ‘Beast Canyon’ is currently available for preorder at Simply NUC. The flagship NUC with the Core i9-11900KB starts at $1,599, the NUC with the Core i7-11700B starts at $1,399, and the NUC with the Core i5-11400H starts at $1,299.



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Science

Astronomers Spot ‘Unique Meteorological Beast’ on Jupiter

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Depiction of stratospheric winds near Jupiter’s south pole.
Image: ESO

For the first time ever, astronomers have measured winds inside Jupiter’s middle atmosphere, revealing unexpectedly fast jet streams within the planet’s deeper layers.

A paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics is giving new meaning to the term “polar vortex.”

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, astronomers have clocked the speed of polar jets located far below the cloud tops, and, wow, is it ever gusty down there. The fastest of these jets is moving at 895 miles per hour (1,440 km/h), which is nearly five times faster than winds produced by the strongest hurricanes on Earth.

Thibault Cavalié, the lead author of the study and a planetary scientist at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux in France, said these jets, found under Jupiter’s main auroras (yes, Jupiter has auroras, and they’re quite stunning), seem to be the “lower tail of the supersonic jets seen 900 km [560 miles] above,” as he explained in an email. These currents could form a “huge anticyclone with a diameter of 3 to 4 Earth diameters and a vertical extent of 900 km,” said Cavalié, to which he added: “This is unique in the solar system.”

In a statement put out by the European Southern Observatory, Cavalié described the newly detected feature as a “unique meteorological beast.”

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Measuring wind speed below the top atmospheric layer of Jupiter is not easy. The iconic red and white bands that streak across Jupiter are typically used to measure winds at the top layer, and the planet’s auroras, which are linked to strong winds in the upper atmosphere, are also used as reference points. But to be fair, scientists haven’t really been able to measure winds in the middle atmosphere of Jupiter—the stratosphere—until now.

Two things made these measurements possible: a famous comet and a very powerful telescope.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter in 1994.
Image: ESO

The comet in question is Shoemaker–Levy 9, which smashed into Jupiter in 1994. The impact left distinctive molecules in the atmosphere, and they’ve been blowing around the gas giant for the past 27 years. The presence of these molecules—namely hydrogen cyanide—made it possible for Cavalié and his colleagues to peer below the cloud tops and measure the speed of stratospheric jet streams.

To detect these molecules, the team used 42 of ALMA’s 66 high-precision antennas, marking the first time that scientists have obtained such measurements in Jupiter’s middle atmosphere.

Specifically, the ALMA data allowed the scientists to measure tiny frequency changes in the radiation emissions of molecules as they’re blown by winds in this part of the planet. In other words, they measured the Doppler shift. By doing so, “we were able to deduce the speed of the winds much like one could deduce the speed of a passing train by the change in the frequency of the train whistle,” explained Vincent Hue, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and a co-author of the new study, in the ESO statement.

These measurements showed that winds under the auroras near the poles were moving at 895 mph, which is more than twice the speed of winds swirling within the planet’s Great Red Spot. Toward the equator, stratospheric winds were clocked at an average speed of 373 mph (600 km/h).

High-speed winds had previously been detected at the upper atmospheric layer, but scientists figured that the deeper you go the slower you go, as far as wind speeds are concerned. The new research suggests otherwise, a finding that came as a complete surprise to the team.

The newly detected winds are fast, but they’re not the fastest in the solar system, nor are they even the fastest on Jupiter. The winds observed under the aurora of Jupiter are “twice as fast as the fastest winds measured at the cloud-top of Jupiter,” said Cavalié. “Higher up,” however, and “still under the aurora in a layer called the ionosphere,” there are “winds with supersonic speeds of 1 to 2 kilometers per second [0.62 to 1.24 miles per second],” or 2,240 to 4,475 mph (3,600 to 7,200 km/h). Neptune, he added, “has the strongest winds in the solar system at cloud level and they are 25% faster than the winds we have measured under the aurora.”

This research, in addition to measuring winds in Jupiter’s stratosphere, was done as a proof-of-concept for similar investigations to be carried out by the Submillimetre Wave Instrument (SWI) aboard the upcoming Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE). Launch is scheduled for next year, and it’ll be the first European mission to Jupiter, with arrival expected in around 10 years time.

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Science

“Meteorological Beast in Our Solar System” – Powerful Stratospheric Winds Measured on Jupiter for the First Time

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Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, a team of astronomers have directly measured winds in Jupiter’s middle atmosphere for the first time. By analyzing the aftermath of a comet collision from the 1990s, the researchers have revealed incredibly powerful winds, with speeds of up to 1450 kilometers an hour, near Jupiter’s poles. They could represent what the team have described as a “unique meteorological beast in our Solar System.”

This image, taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope and the IRAC instrument, shows comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impacting Jupiter in July 1994. Credit: ESO

Jupiter is famous for its distinctive red and white bands: swirling clouds of moving gas that astronomers traditionally use to track winds in Jupiter’s lower atmosphere. Astronomers have also seen, near Jupiter’s poles, the vivid glows known as aurorae, which appear to be associated with strong winds in the planet’s upper atmosphere. But until now, researchers had never been able to directly measure wind patterns in between these two atmospheric layers, in the stratosphere.

These two photos from the ESO La Silla observatory show the individual nuclei of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, now headed for collision with Jupiter. Credit: ESO

Measuring wind speeds in Jupiter’s stratosphere using cloud-tracking techniques is impossible because of the absence of clouds in this part of the atmosphere. However, astronomers were provided with an alternative measuring aid in the form of comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, which collided with the gas giant in spectacular fashion in 1994. This impact produced new molecules in Jupiter’s stratosphere, where they have been moving with the winds ever since.

A team of astronomers, led by Thibault Cavalié of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux in France, have now tracked one of these molecules — hydrogen cyanide — to directly measure stratospheric “jets” on Jupiter. Scientists use the word “jets” to refer to narrow bands of wind in the atmosphere, like Earth’s jet streams.

This image shows an artist’s impression of winds in Jupiter’s stratosphere near the planet’s south pole, with the blue lines representing wind speeds. These lines are superimposed on a real image of Jupiter, taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Jupiter’s famous bands of clouds are located in the lower atmosphere, where winds have previously been measured. But tracking winds right above this atmospheric layer, in the stratosphere, is much harder since no clouds exist there. By analyzing the aftermath of a comet collision from the 1990s and using the ALMA telescope, in which ESO is a partner, researchers have been able to reveal incredibly powerful stratospheric winds, with speeds of up to 1450 kilometers an hour, near Jupiter’s poles.
Credit: ESO/L. Calçada & NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

“The most spectacular result is the presence of strong jets, with speeds of up to 400 meters per second, which are located under the aurorae near the poles,” says Cavalié. These wind speeds, equivalent to about 1450 kilometers an hour, are more than twice the maximum storm speeds reached in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and over three times the wind speed measured on Earth’s strongest tornadoes.

“Our detection indicates that these jets could behave like a giant vortex with a diameter of up to four times that of Earth, and some 900 kilometers in height,” explains co-author Bilal Benmahi, also of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux. “A vortex of this size would be a unique meteorological beast in our Solar System,” Cavalié adds.

Amazing image of Jupiter taken in infrared light on the night of 17 August 2008 with the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator (MAD) prototype instrument mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This false color photo is the combination of a series of images taken over a time span of about 20 minutes, through three different filters (2, 2.14, and 2.16 microns). The image sharpening obtained is about 90 milli-arcseconds across the whole planetary disc, a real record on similar images taken from the ground. This corresponds to seeing details about 300 km wide on the surface of the giant planet. The great red spot is not visible in this image as it was on the other side of the planet during the observations. The observations were done at infrared wavelengths where absorption due to hydrogen and methane is strong. This explains why the colors are different from how we usually see Jupiter in visible-light. This absorption means that light can be reflected back only from high-altitude hazes, and not from deeper clouds. These hazes lie in the very stable upper part of Jupiter’s troposphere, where pressures are between 0.15 and 0.3 bar. Mixing is weak within this stable region, so tiny haze particles can survive for days to years, depending on their size and fall speed. Additionally, near the planet’s poles, a higher stratospheric haze (light blue regions) is generated by interactions with particles trapped in Jupiter’s intense magnetic field.
Credit: ESO/F. Marchis, M. Wong, E. Marchetti, P. Amico, S. Tordo

Astronomers were aware of strong winds near Jupiter’s poles, but much higher up in the atmosphere, hundreds of kilometers above the focus area of the new study, which is published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Previous studies predicted that these upper-atmosphere winds would decrease in velocity and disappear well before reaching as deep as the stratosphere. “The new ALMA data tell us the contrary,” says Cavalié, adding that finding these strong stratospheric winds near Jupiter’s poles was a “real surprise.”


This video shows an artist’s animation of winds in Jupiter’s stratosphere near the planet’s south pole, with the blue lines representing wind speeds. These lines are superimposed on a real image of Jupiter, taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada & NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

The team used 42 of ALMA’s 66 high-precision antennas, located in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, to analyze the hydrogen cyanide molecules that have been moving around in Jupiter’s stratosphere since the impact of Shoemaker–Levy 9. The ALMA data allowed them to measure the Doppler shift — tiny changes in the frequency of the radiation emitted by the molecules — caused by the winds in this region of the planet. “By measuring this shift, we were able to deduce the speed of the winds much like one could deduce the speed of a passing train by the change in the frequency of the train whistle,” explains study co-author Vincent Hue, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in the US.

In addition to the surprising polar winds, the team also used ALMA to confirm the existence of strong stratospheric winds around the planet’s equator, by directly measuring their speed, also for the first time. The jets spotted in this part of the planet have average speeds of about 600 kilometers an hour.

The ALMA observations required to track stratospheric winds in both the poles and equator of Jupiter took less than 30 minutes of telescope time. “The high levels of detail we achieved in this short time really demonstrate the power of the ALMA observations,” says Thomas Greathouse, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in the US and co-author of the study. “It is astounding to me to see the first direct measurement of these winds.”


This animation of Jupiter was created from real images taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The impact sites of the fragments of comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, which hit Jupiter in 1994, are visible in dark brown in the planet’s southern hemisphere. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser, NASA/ESA

“These ALMA results open a new window for the study of Jupiter’s auroral regions, which was really unexpected just a few months back,” says Cavalié. “They also set the stage for similar yet more extensive measurements to be made by the JUICE mission and its Submillimetre Wave Instrument,” Greathouse adds, referring to the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, which is expected to launch into space next year.

ESO’s ground-based Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), set to see first light later this decade, will also explore Jupiter. The telescope will be capable of making highly detailed observations of the planet’s aurorae, giving us further insight into Jupiter’s atmosphere.

More information

Reference: “First direct measurement of auroral and equatorial jets in the stratosphere of Jupiter” by T. Cavalié, B. Benmahi, V. Hue, R. Moreno, E. Lellouch, T. Fouchet, P. Hartogh, L. Rezac, T. K. Greathouse, G. R. Gladstone, J. A. Sinclair, M. Dobrijevic, F. Billebaud and C. Jarchow, 18 March 2021, Astronomy & Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202140330

The team is composed of T. Cavalié (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux [LAB], France, and LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University [LESIA], France), B. Benmahi (LAB), V. Hue (Southwest Research Institute [SwRI], USA), R. Moreno (LESIA), E. Lellouch (LESIA), T. Fouchet (LESIA), P. Hartogh (Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung [MPS], Germany), L. Rezac (MPS), T. K. Greathouse (SwRI), G. R. Gladstone (SwRI), J. A. Sinclair (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA), M. Dobrijevic (LAB), F. Billebaud (LAB) and C. Jarchow (MPS).

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious program focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organizing cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky.”

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.



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