Qualla: Malargüe Station https://qualla.com/malargue-station en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:39:57 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Malargüe Station https://qualla.com/malargue-station Malargüe Station: Introduction https://qualla.com/malargue-station/ Photo credit Robycol03, CC BY-SA 4.0. They needed a windless day. On 7 December 2011, engineers waited for the Patagonian air to fall still, then began hoisting a 35-metre dish into place atop its mount on the dry plain south of Malargüe. The operation took hours, and a single strong gust could have ruined it. When the dish finally settled and the bolts went home, Argentina had become the third anchor of Europe's reach into deep space - a 610-tonne ear, tilted toward the sky, built to catch signals so faint they arrive as little more than a rumor of a spacecraft.

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Image: Robycol03 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/63ws-malarg-e-station-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Malargüe Station: The Third Ear https://qualla.com/malargue-station/ Photo credit Robycol03, CC BY-SA 4.0. Officially it is Deep Space Antenna 3, or DSA 3, one of three giant tracking stations the European Space Agency operates around the globe. Its sisters sit near Cebreros in Spain and at New Norcia in Western Australia. The geometry is deliberate: spaced roughly a third of the plan...

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Image: Robycol03 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/63ws-malarg-e-station-the-third-ear.mp3 0:06 2 full Malargüe Station: Listening Across the Void https://qualla.com/malargue-station/ Photo credit NASA, Public domain. The dish transmits commands in X-band and listens in both X- and Ka-band, straining for telemetry that has crossed the solar system to get here. Malargüe was one of the stations that tracked Rosetta, the probe that chased and orbited a comet, and it has carried daily traffic for ...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/63ws-malarg-e-station-listening-across-the-void.mp3 0:06 3 full Malargüe Station: An Advantage of Distance https://qualla.com/malargue-station/ Photo credit Robycol03, CC BY-SA 4.0. Malargüe's remoteness, often a liability for an outpost 30 kilometres from the nearest town, turns out to be a scientific asset. Sitting far from the great radio dishes of the Northern Hemisphere, it gives astronomers a long baseline across the planet for a technique called very-...

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Image: Robycol03 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/63ws-malarg-e-station-an-advantage-of-distance.mp3 0:06 4 full Malargüe Station: Where the Sky Goes Quiet https://qualla.com/malargue-station/ Photo credit Lorenzo Caccianiga, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is a reason this corner of Mendoza Province draws people who study the universe. The air is thin and dry, the population sparse, the radio noise low. A short drive away, on the same high plain, the Pierre Auger Observatory spreads its cosmic-ray detectors across thousands o...

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Image: Lorenzo Caccianiga | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/3/w/s/malargue-station-wp/63ws-malarg-e-station-where-the-sky-goes-quiet.mp3 0:06 5 full