Large Latin American Millimeter Array, Radio telescope in Puna de Atacama, Argentina

The Large Latin American Millimeter Array is a radio telescope with a 12-meter antenna designed to observe the sky at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. This instrument captures faint signals from distant objects in space and collects precise astronomical data about their properties.

The project began in 2007 during a scientific meeting in Venezuela and later became formalized through agreements between Argentina and Brazil in 2014. This partnership between nations allowed the development and operation of this modern observing instrument for Latin American astronomy.

The acronym LLAMA comes from the Quechuan word for the South American camelid that lives in the Puna where the telescope is being installed. The observatory logo carries a llama profile in the lower left, alongside the Southern Cross, a telescope sketch and the acronym. Official documents sometimes expand the acronym as Long Latin American Millimeter Array, but the Executive Committee settled on Large.

The antenna stands at Alto Chorrillos in the Puna de Atacama, at 4,825 m (4,830 m in the Spanish source), reached from San Antonio de los Cobres in Salta. The site was chosen for air so dry that water-vapour absorption stays low below 1 mm wavelength. The planned route for the dish runs from a port in northern Chile via the Sico Pass.

The telescope connects with other instruments around the world through a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, allowing observations that no single instrument could achieve alone. By linking together globally, these tools create virtual telescopes with enormous effective diameters.