IRAM is an international research institute for radio astronomy. Its overall objective is to explore the universe and to study its origins and evolution.

Founded in 1979, IRAM’s headquarters are located in Grenoble. With a staff of more than 120 scientists, engineers, technicians and administrative personnel, IRAM maintains and develops two observatories: the 30-meter telescope located on Pico Veleta near Granada in Spain, and the Plateau de Bure interferometer (an array of six 15-meter telescopes) in the French Alps. Both instruments are prime facilities for radio astronomy and the most powerful observatories today operating at millimetre wavelengths. Read more

February 8, 2010
Première localisation de l’eau dans un système planétaire en formation
Pour la première fois, des astronomes ont pu localiser où se trouve l’eau dans les disques en rotation autour d’une jeune étoile, semblable à notre soleil. Ces disques, au sein desquels l’on pense que les planètes se forment, sont constitués de gaz et de poussières. La présente analyse montre, de plus, qu’ils peuvent renfermer jusqu’à cent fois la quantité d’eau contenue dans les océans terrestres. Réalisées avec l’interféromètre du Plateau de Bure, l’un des radio observatoires les plus sensibles au monde, les observations permettent ainsi de dévoiler une partie du mystère de l’origine de l’eau dans les systèmes planétaires...

December 10, 2009
IRAM scales new heights: At 5000 meters altitude, the institute's equipments capture first fringes at ALMA
On November 5th 2009, first fringes on the high-altitude site were obtained with the band 7 receivers, measuring the continuum emission of a bright quasar, 3C454.3. The result testifies for the high quality and performances of IRAM receivers, which exhibit noise figures well below the initial ALMA specifications. With its highly recognized expertise, IRAM is one of the major partners in the construction of ALMA, a giant radio observatory in the Chilean desert...

November 12, 2009
Mayor of Grenoble and Member of Parliament visit IRAM exhibition stand at the Fête de la Science
The photo shows Grenoble's mayor, Michel Destot, and Geneviève Fioraso, Member of the French Parliament, during their visit of the IRAM exhibition stand at the "Village des Sciences de Grenoble 2009". During 4 days and on the occasion of the French "Fête de la Science", IRAM staff members, astronomers and engineers were explaining IRAM's activities to a general public...

May 14, 2009
IRAM detectors, tiny but great in space
ESA, the European space agency will soon launch two new scientific satellites for astronomy in a combined mission with its heavy load carrier Ariane 5. Both of them, Planck and Herschel, are equipped with the latest high technology from the Grenoble area. In particular the Herschel Space Observatory (HSO) will embark super-conducting detectors which have been designed and manufactured at the IRAM laboratories.

February 5, 2009
Infant galaxies: small and hyperactive
When galaxies are born, do their stars form everywhere at once, or only within a small core region? Recent measurements with the Plateau de Bure Interferometer provide the first concrete evidence that star-forming regions in infant galaxies are indeed small - but also hyperactive, producing stars at astonishingly high rates.

November 25, 2008
First detection of glycolaldehyde outside the Galactic Center
With the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer an international team of scientists has detected for the first time outside the Galactic center the simplest of the monosaccharide sugars: glycolaldehyde. The importance of this organic molecule remains in the fact that it can react with propenal to form ribose, a central constituent of RNA, and is, therefore, directly linked to the origin of life...