Geographical engineer graduated from Universidad de Santiago contributes to world astronomy

  • Angel Otárola graduated from Universidad de Santiago in 1989, and since then, he has been working in the development of different astronomy projects. He participated in the discovery of the site where the Alma project was set up and currently, he is part of the scientific team working at the Thirty Meter Telescope of the California Institute of Technology, in Hawaii.
  • During his recent visit to the country, the researcher gave a presentation at Universidad de Santiago on scientific questions that have not been answered yet regarding the exploration of the universe and the characteristics of our country that favor the location of observatories.


 

“An engineer is prepared to deal with different matters,” Angel Otárola said to students and academics of the Department of Geographical Engineering who attended his first presentation at the University on August 12th.

The civil engineer (in Geographical Engineering), who graduated in 1989, embodies a paradox: by studying the grounds he was able to develop a professional career that today looks at the sky, as he is currently working as a senior scientist at the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project, in Hawaii. During his speech about the search for answers in the universe and the best locations for astronomical observatories, he told the audience his story. “We have our feet on the ground, but our eyes in the universe. I think that is our situation,” he said.

“My training in basic sciences (at Universidad de Santiago) is very strong in Physics and Math, what allowed me to address complex matters, like the ones in the astronomy field,” he said, referring to the technology that was starting at that moment, like GPS, that was the subject of his dissertation work.

He was soon hired in Antofagasta, for the La Silla project of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), where he spent his free time exploring the desert and looking for new locations for astronomy projects. And so it was that, together with a Japanese team, in 1994, he discovered the Chajnantor plateau, an ideal place for observational astronomy due to the dryness of the land, the number of cloudless nights and the low occurrence of atmospheric turbulence.

“My training as geographical civil engineer was appropriate, because it provided me with tools that allowed me to take part in the exploration process of the north of Chile and help to identify locations to finally set up important astronomy projects like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) project,” he said. He explained that he also took part in other exploration works in that area that led to the installation of the Chajnantor Test Facility, a telescope operated by the California Institute of Technology that studies cosmic radiation.

To deepen his knowledge in the astronomy field, in 2004 he was admitted in the MSc and PhD program of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences of the University of Arizona and three years later he was hired as a scientist to take part in the Adaptive Optics group of the TMT project (Thirty Meter Telescope of the California Institute of Technology), where he works up to date. He is also a research associate at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Arizona.

In his presentation he spoke about the exceptional conditions provided by the north of Chile for installing observatories and he explained some of the subjects on which astronomers are working today, like dark matter, dark energy and the possibility of life on planets outside the solar system.

Technology transfer

Angel Otárola believes that our country should increase the relation between scientific development and observational astronomy, to generate technology transfer and innovation,

“Our country has had some advantages, as Chilean astronomers have access to 10% of the observation time of the projects. But I believe that the second stage that the country has to commit to is technology transfer; we Chileans should be able to start manufacturing the instruments required for these observations,” he said, referring to the development of research on precision mechanics, cryogenics for equipment maintenance, software and electronics, among other disciplines that contribute to Astro Engineering.

“This definitely opens an opportunity for universities,” he added, referring to the need of having a scientific question to answer, financial support and confidence to manufacture the instruments.

“Manufacturing a completely Chilean instrument could take between 5 and 10 years and that continuous process in which technical and engineering problems were solved and into which cutting edge scientific knowledge was incorporated is where technology transfer is produced,” he concluded.


Translated by Marcela Contreras

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