Latest VLT Survey Telescope Stories

[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] Astronomers have obtained the best images ever of a star that has lost most of its material to a vampire companion. By combining the light captured by four telescopes at ESO’s Paranal Observatory they created a virtual telescope 130 meters across with vision 50 times sharper than the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Surprisingly, the new results show that the transfer of mass from one star to the other in this double system is gentler than expected. “We can...

ESO's Very Large Telescope has picked up the fastest rotating star found so far. This massive bright young star lies in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160 000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers think that it may have had a violent past and has been ejected from a double star system by its exploding companion. An international team of astronomers has been using ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, to make a survey of the heaviest and...

On 24 November 2011 ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile was honored by a visit from Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Asturias. The delegation, which also included the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Dr. Cristina Garmendia, the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfredo Moreno, and the Chilean Minister of National Assets, Catalina Parot, first had the opportunity to hear a series of presentations about ESO at the Paranal Residencia. This session was also...

[ Watch Video 1 ] | [ Watch Video 2 ] On Saturday 15 October, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) opened the doors of its headquarters in Garching bei München, Bavaria, Germany, to the public. Throughout the day, thousands of visitors had the chance to help build a full-size mock-up mirror of the largest planned telescope in the world — the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) — and to experience many other aspects of ESO’s work. Around 3100 people came to ESO’s...

[ Watch the Video ] At a ceremony Thursday in Santiago, Chile the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfredo Moreno and ESO’s Director General, Tim de Zeeuw, signed an agreement regarding the European Extremely Large Telescope. This agreement between ESO and the Chilean government includes the donation of land for the telescope, as well as a long-term concession to establish a protected area around it, and support from the Chilean government for the establishment of the E-ELT. The...

  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...

Observations from ESO's Very Large Telescope have shed light on the power source of a rare vast cloud of glowing gas in the early Universe. The observations show for the first time that this giant "Lyman-alpha blob" "” one of the largest single objects known "” must be powered by galaxies embedded within it. The results appear in the 18 August issue of the journal Nature.A team of astronomers has used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to study an unusual object called a Lyman-alpha blob...

A huge image, from the new VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and its camera OmegaCAM at ESO's Paranal Observatory, shows a triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). But the faint objects in the background, rather than the foreground galaxies, are what may capture an astronomer's attention. The VST's sharp view of these dim objects hints at the power of the telescope and OmegaCAM for mapping the distant Universe.The VST [1] is the newest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory....

ESO's Very Large Telescope captured this striking view of the nebula around the star cluster NGC 1929 within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. A colossal example of what astronomers call a superbubble dominates this stellar nursery. It is being carved by the winds from bright young stars and the shockwaves from supernova explosions.The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way. It contains many regions where clouds of gas and dust...

New image reveals vast nebula around famous supergiant starUsing the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have imaged a complex and bright nebula around the supergiant star Betelgeuse in greater detail than ever before. This structure, which resembles flames emanating from the star, is formed as the behemoth sheds its material into space.Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation of Orion, is one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It is also one of...