Involvement in Chilean initiatives raises level of Brazilian astronomy

Workshop with Chile's National Scientific & Technological Research Commission discusses astronomy, oceanography, agroindustry and nanotechnology

By José Tadeu Arantes  |  Agência FAPESP – FAPESP wants to strengthen ties with Chilean institutions to intensify research efforts in strategic areas. “Our scientific partnerships remain strongly concentrated in the United States and West Europe. We need to build closer relationships with our South American neighbors,” said José Goldemberg, President of FAPESP.

The scientific affinities between Brazil and Chile were the focus for a FAPESP-CONICYT Workshop held on December 7, 2016, at FAPESP’s headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil. CONICYT is Chile’s National Scientific & Technological Research Commission. The purpose of the workshop was to stimulate new collaborations between Brazilian and Chilean researchers in astronomy, oceanography, agroindustry and nanotechnology.

The meeting consisted of paired Chilean and Brazilian presentations in four areas of interest. Astronomy is clearly the area in which the collaborations have advanced most. The reason, according to Luis Chavarría, who heads CONICYT’s Astronomy Program, is that geographic conditions have made Chile a “mecca” for today’s astronomers.

“The Andes are a formidable barrier that blocks the mass of humid air coming in from the Atlantic, while the Humboldt Current cools the Pacific and inhibits evaporation. These phenomena make the sky in northern Chile extremely dry and clear, which is ideal for astronomical observation,” Chavarría told Agência FAPESP.

Large international astronomy consortia such as the Gemini observatories, which began operating in 2000 with “twin” telescopes, with one in the Chilean Andes and the other in Hawaii, and the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which saw first light in the Chilean Andes in 2005, have raised the level of ground-based astronomy worldwide, just as the quality of space-based astronomy was enhanced by the Hubble Space Telescope, launched into low Earth orbit in 1990. 

Even more ambitious projects currently under construction include the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), with seven mirrors that together will form an effective aperture of 25.4 m, producing images ten times sharper than those of Hubble; the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), comprising 66 high-precision antennas that will operate 5,000 m above sea level in the Atacama Desert; the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), with a 39 m main mirror, coordinated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO); and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), run by the California Institute of Technology and the University of California.

“Weather conditions will allow ALMA to operate with clear skies for 70% of the year,” Chavarría said. “Seventeen observatories should be operating altogether in Chile by 2025.”

João Evangelista Steiner, Full Professor at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics & Atmospheric Sciences (IAG-USP), shared the astronomy session with Chavarría. He said that Brazil’s participation in Gemini and SOAR has allowed a “leap in quality” for the nation’s astronomers. “And not just in astronomy but also in the engineering involved in the astronomical observation process,” Steiner noted. “Four Brazilian companies are collaborating on construction of the dome for SOAR, and several others on fabrication of the instruments.”

According to Steiner, Brazil was entitled to 5.5% of Gemini’s observation time in 2015, and Brazilian researchers produced 12.3% of the scientific articles based on data obtained by using the telescopes, thus evidencing the high performance level achieved. “The number of Brazilian publications associated with Gemini and SOAR has increased 17% per year since 2000,” he said.

FAPESP will invest US$40 million in the GMT project, or approximately 4% of the estimated total cost. Under the terms of the international agreement, this investment will ensure that researchers from São Paulo State will be able to use 4% of the GMT’s operating time for their own observations, in addition to giving Brazilian astronomers a seat on the consortium’s board (read more at http://agencia.fapesp.br/21351).

Marine life

Another discipline for which Chile is a particularly favorable research location is oceanography, as detailed in the second segment of the workshop by biologist Silvio Pantoja, who heads the University of Concepción’s Center for Oceanographic Research in the Southeast Pacific (COPAS). With a land mass only three times that of São Paulo State, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes, Chile has a 6,435 km coastline.

In addition, Chile is home to the marine upwelling driven by the Humboldt Current. The Andes barrier forces the southeast trade winds to blow northward, and this deflected wind regime moves the surface waters offshore from the Chilean and Peruvian coast, thereby allowing deeper waters, which are cold and extremely rich in nutrients, to rise to the top. The result is an extraordinary abundance of marine life. Between 18% and 20% of the world’s fishing occurs in the vast marine ecosystem associated with the Humboldt Current.

“The opportunities for collaboration between Brazilian and Chilean oceanographers include physical oceanography; coastal oceanography, with studies of pollution and management; aquaculture; inorganic and organic geochemistry; deep-water ecology; paleo-oceanography, with studies of sedimentary records and modeling; and studies of extremophile organisms—bacteria that survive and reproduce in extreme conditions,” said Michel Michaelovitch de Mahiques in his presentation. Mahiques, formerly the director and now the vice director of the University of São Paulo’s Oceanographic Institute (IO-USP), shared the workshop session devoted to oceanography with Pantoja.

Smart agriculture

Although copper once accounted for over 60% of Chile’s exports but now represents 30%, it remains the country’s main export. However, Chile has ample agroindustrial experience and potential, said Ricardo Diaz Cárcamo, the managing director of the Food Processing Research Center (CEAP).

Emphasizing the value-added content of Chile’s agroindustrial products, Cárcamo showed that exports of processed foods such as vegetable oils, canned products, juices, frozen foods and dried products grew rapidly and consistently in the first 14 years of the present century and thereafter trended downward in step with the contraction in world trade. The challenges to the sector’s sustainability and expansion include waste management and valorization as well as investment in research and development.

As an example, he cited the olive oil industry. Only 15% of the output from the industrial process is olive oil, and 85% is waste. A similar situation occurs in the juice industry. Transforming waste into resources, such as antioxidants, functional foods or fiber for humans or animals, is an important economic and environmental goal, he said.

Cárcamo’s presentation was paired with that of Silvio Crestana, the ex-CEO of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Organization (EMBRAPA), who is currently affiliated with EMBRAPA Instrumentation. Crestana introduced the subject of smart agriculture. “This term refers to the use of electronic equipment, sensors, machinery and information technology to support more precise, efficient and sustainable decision making in the management of agricultural production,” he explained.

In the ensuing discussion, Crestana argued that the concept of smart agriculture, which also covers the creation of systems to integrate crops, livestock and forests, does not necessarily presuppose large agroindustrial estates but can be highly productive for medium and small producers via co-ops or public initiatives.

Nanotechnology

The last segment of the workshop focused on nanotechnology, with presentations by Dora Altbir Drullinsky, Director of the Center for Development of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology (CEDENNA), and Marcelo Knobel, Full Professor at the University of Campinas’s Physics Institute (IF-UNICAMP) and the head of the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (LNNano), which belongs to the National Energy & Materials Research Center (CNPEM).

This is a field in which Chile stands to make significant gains relative to the far greater development previously achieved by Brazil. The partnership is already under way, in fact, and Knobel himself is participating in initiatives launched by CEDENNA.

Knobel highlighted FAPESP’s support for the sector in São Paulo, with a total of 6,274 grants and scholarships awarded. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the focuses of five of the 17 Research, Innovation & Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) funded by FAPESP: the Optics & Photonics Research Center; the Functional Materials Development Center; the Food Research Center; the Center for Computational Engineering & Sciences; and the Center for Research, Technology & Education in Vitreous Materials.

In addition to the speakers and other researchers, the workshop was attended by Jaime Gazmuri, Chilean Ambassador to Brazil; Cesar Gatica, the Chilean science attaché in Brazil; Claudio Rojas, the coordinator of Chile’s Foreign Ministry; Christian Nicolai, CONICYT’s managing director; and Andrea Cibotti, CONICYT’s project manager. The attendees representing FAPESP were CEO Carlos Américo Pacheco; Science Director Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz; Marilda Solon Teixeira Bottesi, a special advisor to the Science Director; and Glenda Mezarobba, the research collaboration manager.

Closing the workshop, Mezarobba recalled that 103 Chileans have received scholarships from FAPESP to study in São Paulo in the past ten years. FAPESP has cooperation agreements with the University of Chile (UCH), University of La Frontera (UFRO) and Magellan University (UMAG). Exchanges will intensify significantly, owing to the forthcoming signature of a cooperation agreement with CONICYT.