Santiago. The ALMA astronomical observatory, one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world, located in northern Chile, suffered a cyberattack over the weekend that keeps some of its operations suspended, as reported on Wednesday.
“Last Saturday, October 29, at 06:14 a.m. (10:14 GMT), the ALMA observatory in Chile suffered a cyberattack on its computer systems,” the entity said on its official Twitter account this Wednesday, after the holiday of Monday and Tuesday in Chile.
ALMA said the attack forced it to suspend “astronomical observations and its website”, while its email services “are operating in a limited way”.
Although the threat “has been contained”, the observatory indicated that “given the nature of the episode, it is not yet possible to estimate a timeframe for the return to regular activities”, while observatory specialists continued to work to restore the affected operations.
“The attack did not compromise ALMA’s antennas or any scientific data,” said ALMA, a joint venture between partners from Europe, the United States and Japan, in cooperation with Chile.
The Large Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has 66 antennas located more than 5,000 meters high on the Chajnantor plain in the Atacama desert. The complex, which began exploring the universe in 2011, collaborated last April in the discovery of the most distant galaxy ever detected, located 13.5 billion light years away.
No group of hackers has claimed responsibility for the attack on the ALMA observatory.
300 professionals work at ALMA, 40 of them computer engineers and technicians who are in charge of managing the powerful computers, servers, storage centers and screens.
The Atacama desert concentrates astronomical observations in Chile thanks to privileged conditions for night observation, with a clean atmosphere, little rain and low humidity during most of the year.
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