6 Surprising Facts About World's Most Powerful Radio Telescope

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the world's most powerful observatory for studying the universe at the long-wavelength millimeter and submillimeter range of light. It's designed to spot some of the most distant, ancient galaxies ever seen, and to probe the areas around young stars for planets in the process of forming.

The opening of the $1.3 billiontelescope array is being celebrated in an inauguration ceremony on Wednesday (March 13) at its observation site in Chile's Atacama desert. Here are six things you should know about the ambitious, not to mention immense, astronomy project