It's the world's biggest telescope, yet it doesn't use light this week on planetary Radio. Radio. Welcome to the Travel Show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

It will make sharper images than the Hubble Space Telescope,

yet it is a radio telescope.

Alma is the gigantic instrument already in operation 5,000 meters or about three miles above sea level in

Chile's Otakama Desert. We'll talk to two of the scientists who are part of the

international Alma team along with all of our regulars beginning with Emily

Loch duwala. Emily thanks for joining us as always I want to look back to

something you posted on the 16th of January actually the 15th and the 16th of January, actually the 15th and the 16th. It's an indication I guess that

scientists did the right thing taking this little detour with curiosity on Mars.

That's right, Matt. You know, the rover operators

faced a really tough decision months ago when they first decided where to

start driving. The thing is that they knew that they were going to have to test

out all the equipment on some Martian rocks and they really want to have to test out all the equipment on some Martian rocks.

And they really want to drive to the mountain that's in the middle of the crater, but

there were some interesting looking rocks that were not very far from the rover, but precisely

in the wrong direction.

Well, they decided to go to those interesting looking rocks

that were closer and that's where they've been doing all their tests and lo and behold it is a kind of

rock that is exactly what curiosity was sent to Mars to study. We're looking at lakebed

sediments that have been wet over at least two, probably three different times in

Mars's history, so it's preserving a record of water on Mars and at least two,

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