Latest European Southern Observatory Stories
NEWTON, N.C., Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Thirteen 12-meter antennas manufactured by General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies have been successfully installed at the 16,500-foot-high Chajnantor plateau in Chile, home to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory. Located in the Andes mountains, the 115-ton, highly specialized antennas form part of an 11-mile-wide international astronomy project. When it is completed in 2013, scientists will use the...
[ Watch the Video ] Astronomers have opened up its doors to a new ground-base telescope that will help give scientists a peak at the places that have never been explored. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has released an image of a merging pair of galaxies as part of its grand opening. ALMA is the largest and most expensive radio observatory on Earth and was funded by several different space agencies. Radio observatories collect tiny waves given off by the...
The Science Technology and Facilities Council (STFC) confirmed that it will provide nearly $5.5 million (US) to UK scientists to develop key instruments for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), which is slated to be the biggest optical and infrared telescope in the world. With funding in place, British astronomers will now be able to take a leading role in building the critical scientific instruments needed for the E-ELT, which will be constructed in Chile and should be complete...
[ Watch the Video ] University of Manchester astronomers used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to discover the Fried Egg Nebula. The newly discovered star has a diameter of about a thousand times bigger than the Sun and is about 13,000 light-years away from Earth. It is the closest hypergiant found so far and shines about 500,000 times brighter than the Sun "This object was known to glow brightly in the infrared but, surprisingly, nobody had...
[ View the Video ] A new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope reveals the Lambda Centauri Nebula, a cloud of glowing hydrogen and newborn stars in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). The nebula, also known as IC 2944, is sometimes nicknamed the Running Chicken Nebula, from a bird-like shape some people see in its brightest region. In the nebula, which lies around 6500 light-years from Earth, hot newborn stars that formed from clouds of...
Richest haul of planets so far includes 16 new super-Earths [ View Video ] Astronomers using ESO’s world-leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have today announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths, one of which orbits at the edge of the habitable zone of its star. By studying the properties of all the HARPS planets found so far, the team has found that about 40% of stars similar to the Sun have at least one planet lighter than Saturn. The HARPS...
ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has captured a striking image of the open cluster NGC 2100. This brilliant star cluster is around 15 million years old, and located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The cluster is surrounded by glowing gas from the nearby Tarantula Nebula. Observers often overlook NGC 2100 because of its close proximity to the impressive Tarantula Nebula and the super star cluster RMC 136 The glowing gas of the Tarantula...
The ultimate in high altitude, high-tech catering has arrived in Chile to serve chilled "provisions" to the telescopes at the largest astronomical complex in the world, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Until now, servicing the state-of-the-art superconducting receivers inside an ALMA telescope has required hauling the entire 115-ton telescope from its observing site at 16,500 feet down to a support facility at 9,500 feet. The dangerous 40-mile roundtrip, atop...
A team of European astronomers has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with only remarkably small amounts of other chemical elements in it. This intriguing composition places it in the “forbidden zone” of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence in the first place. The...
ESO’s Very Large Telescope has taken a striking image of a beautiful yet peculiar pair of galaxies nicknamed The Eyes. The larger of these, NGC 4438, was once a spiral galaxy but has become badly deformed by collisions with other galaxies in the last few hundred million years. This picture is the first to come out of ESO’s Cosmic Gems program, an initiative in which ESO has granted dedicated observing time for outreach purposes. The Eyes are about 50 million light-years away in...
Latest European Southern Observatory Reference Libraries
Very Large Telescope -- The Very Large Telescope (VLT) consist of four optical telescopes that have 8.4 meter aperture. The VLT is a project of the European Southern Observatory organization. It is located at the Paranal Observatory on Cerro Paranal, a 2,635-m high mountain in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. The VLT consists of a cluster four of large telescopes, and an interferometer (VLTI) which will be used to resolve fine features. The telescopes have been named after the...
Overwhelmingly Large Telescope -- The European Southern Observatory has undertaken a concept study for the next generation of ground-based Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). Dubbed OWL, ESO's concept is conceived as a 100 m. diameter optical and near-infrared, adaptive telescope. With milliarc second resolution and limiting magnitude V~38, OWL will be capable of imaging solar system objects at resolutions comparable to that offered by space probes, over much longer time scales. It...
La Silla Observatory -- La Silla is a 2400-m mountain, bordering the southern extremity of the Atacama desert in Chile. It is located about 160 Km north of La Serena. Its geographical coordinates are: Latitude 29 15' south & Longitude 70 44' west. Originally known as Cinchado, the mountain was renamed La Silla (the saddle) after its shape. It rises quite isolated and remote from any artificial light and dust sources (astronomy's worst enemies). La Silla was the first ESO...
European Southern Observatory -- ESO, the European Southern Observatory, was created in 1962 to: "establish and operate an astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere, equipped with powerful instruments, with the aim of furthering and organising collaboration in astronomy". ESO is supported by Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. Other countries have expressed interest to become a member as well. ESO...
Mount Wilson Observatory -- astronomical observatory located in California on Mt. Wilson, near Pasadena. Mt. Wilson Observatory was founded in 1904 by George E. Hale. Its equipment includes 100-in. (2.5-m) and 60-in. (1.50-m) reflecting telescopes and two solar-tower telescopes 150 ft. (46 m) and 60 ft. (18 m) in length. The most recent addition is the CHARA (Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy) array operated by Georgia State Univ.; it consists of six 39-in. (1-m) aperture...
