Tag Archive for 'ESO'

This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 1055. This large galaxy appears to lack the whirling arms characteristic of a spiral, as it is seen edge-on; however, it displays odd twists in its structure that were probably caused by an interaction with a large neighboring galaxy, Messier 77. The VLT observed NGC 1055 with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument using visible-light filters. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Spies Spiral Galaxy Edge-On

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) gives a detailed view of NGC 1055, an edge-on spiral galaxy. This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy...

This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. The bright star visible in the image is a foreground star. Image credit: ESO / Josh Barrington.

VLT Sees Elegant Spiral with Explosive Past

Feb 26, 2017 by News Staff

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has produced this beautiful image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. The...

This artist’s impression shows the view from the surface of one of the exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser / Spaceengine.org.

TRAPPIST-1: Nearby Dwarf Star Hosts Seven Earth-Size Exoplanets

Feb 22, 2017 by News Staff

A system of seven exoplanets — three in their star’s habitable zone — has been found by an international team of astronomers. This artist’s...

This spectacular image from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope shows the Cat’s Paw Nebula (upper right) and the Lobster Nebula (lower left); these dramatic objects are regions of active star formation where the hot young stars are causing the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow red; the very rich field of view also includes dark clouds of dust; with around two billion pixels this is one of the largest images ever released by ESO. Image credit: ESO.

Spectacular Photo from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope Shows Cat’s Paw and Lobster Nebulae

Feb 1, 2017 by News Staff

A gigantic new image from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) gives a detailed view of the stellar nurseries NGC 6334 and NGC 6357. This spectacular image...

This image shows the closest stellar system to the Sun, the bright double star Alpha Centauri AB and its distant and faint companion Proxima Centauri. Image credit: ESO / B. Tafreshi, twanight.org / Digitized Sky Survey 2 / Davide De Martin / Mahdi Zamani.

ESO Joins Breakthrough Initiatives to Search for New Exoplanets in Alpha Centauri System

Jan 10, 2017 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement with the Breakthrough Initiatives to adapt ESO’s Very Large Telescope instrumentation...

This image of Orion A is composed of near-infrared observations from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope. Image credit: ESO / VISION Survey.

VISTA Captures Detailed Image of Orion A

Jan 4, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This striking image, captured by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known...

ESO’s New Technology Telescope Views Messier 98

Dec 28, 2016 by Natali Anderson

This image snapped by ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), a 3.58-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the edge-on spiral galaxy...

This map of dark matter was obtained from data from the KiDS survey, using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope. It reveals an expansive web of dense (light) and empty (dark) regions. This image is one out of five patches of the sky observed by KiDS. The invisible dark matter is seen rendered in pink, covering an area of sky around 420 times the size of the full Moon. This image reconstruction was made by analyzing the light collected from over 3 million galaxies more than 6 billion light-years away. The observed galaxy images were warped by the gravitational pull of dark matter as the light traveled through the Universe. Some small dark regions, with sharp boundaries, appear in this image. They are the locations of bright stars and other nearby objects that get in the way of the observations of more distant galaxies and are hence masked out in the map as no weak-lensing signal can be measured in these areas. Image credit: Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration / H. Hildebrandt & B. Giblin / ESO.

Deep Space Images Shed More Light on Dark Matter

Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

An international research team led by Dr. Massimo Viola from the Leiden Observatory and Dr. Hendrik Hildebrandt from the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie...

This artist’s view shows how the light coming from the surface of a strongly magnetic neutron star (left) becomes linearly polarized as it travels through the vacuum of space close to the star on its way to the observer on Earth (right). The polarization of the observed light in the extremely strong magnetic field suggests that the empty space around the neutron star is subject to a quantum effect known as vacuum birefringence. The magnetic and electric field directions of the light rays are shown by the red and blue lines. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Report First Observational Evidence for Vacuum Birefringence

Nov 30, 2016 by News Staff

By studying the light emitted from the very dense and strongly magnetic neutron star RX J1856.5-3754, a team of astronomers has found the strongest observational...

An artist’s concept of Gliese 536b orbiting its star, 33 light-years from Earth. Image credit: Gabriel Perez / Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

Gliese 536b: Super-Earth Found Orbiting Nearby Star

Nov 18, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of astronomers has discovered a super-Earth planet in orbit around Gliese 536, a red dwarf star approximately 33 light-years away. An...

Artist’s impression of the dust disk and a forming Neptune-like planet around TW Hydrae. Image credit: NAOJ.

ESO’s Exoplanet Hunter Spots Curious Features in Planet-Forming Disks around Three Young Stars

Nov 9, 2016 by News Staff

New observations with SPHERE, an advanced exoplanet-hunting instrument on the Very Large Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, have revealed striking...

This image, taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the region R18 within the Carina Nebula. The massive stars within the star formation region slowly destroy the pillars of dust and gas from which they are born. Image credit: A. McLeod / ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Sees ‘Pillars of Destruction’ within Carina Nebula

Nov 2, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed giant pillar-like structures within the Carina Nebula, a huge star-formation region...

Astronomers Snap Picture of Giant Exoplanet 1,200 Light-Years Away

Oct 31, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of astronomers has discovered a giant extrasolar planet orbiting a young star called CVSO 30. Not only have the scientists detected...

This image shows a bright gaseous halo around the quasar Q0042-2627. Image credit: Elena Borisova et al.

Astronomers Find Giant Gaseous Halos around Distant Quasars

Oct 26, 2016 by News Staff

A group of astronomers led by ETH Zurich scientist Elena Borisova has spotted giant clouds of glowing intergalactic gas around distant quasars. This image...

This mosaic shows the Carina Nebula (left part of the image), home of the Eta Carinae stellar system. This part was observed with the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. The middle part shows the direct surrounding of the star system: the Homunculus Nebula, created by the ejected material from the Eta Carinae system. This image was taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The right image shows the innermost part of the system as seen with ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer/ It is the highest resolution image of Eta Carinae ever. Image credit: Gerd Weigelt / ESO.

Eta Carinae Imaged in Sharpest Detail Ever

Oct 19, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Chile have snapped the most detailed image ever of the Eta Carinae stellar system. This...

This image from ESO’s VISTA telescope shows the central part of the Milky Way. While normally hidden behind obscuring dust, the infrared capabilities of the telescope allow astronomers to study stars close to the Galactic center. Within this field of view astronomers detected several RR Lyrae stars. Image credit: ESO / VVV Survey / D. Minniti et al.

VISTA Spots Ancient Stars near Milky Way Center

Oct 12, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s VISTA infrared survey telescope have discovered a dozen ancient stars, of a type known as RR Lyrae, in the vicinity of the center...

This image of Messier 78 was captured using the VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. In the image, Messier 78 is the bluish haze in the center, the other reflection nebula towards the right goes by the name of NGC 2071. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s VISTA Telescope Sees Hidden Stars in Messier 78

Oct 5, 2016 by News Staff

This detailed view of the reflection nebula Messier 78 was taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at ESO’s Paranal...

This image shows the Lyman-alpha blob LAB-1. This picture is a composite of two different images taken with the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope - a wider image showing the surrounding galaxies and a much deeper observation of the blob itself at the center made to detect its polarization. The intense Lyman-alpha ultraviolet radiation from LAB-1 appears green after it has been stretched by the expansion of the Universe during its long journey to Earth. These new observations show for the first time that the light from this object is polarized. This means that the giant ‘blob’ must be powered by galaxies embedded within the cloud. Image credit: M. Hayes / ESO.

Astronomers Unravel Mystery of Gigantic Lyman-Alpha Blobs

Sep 21, 2016 by News Staff

This image shows the Lyman-alpha blob LAB-1. This picture is a composite of two different images taken with the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope...

This image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows Markarian 1018, a galaxy located approximately 607 million light-years away. The faint loops of light around the galaxy are a result of its interaction and merger with another galaxy in the recent past. Image credit: CARS Survey / ESO.

Black Hole Duo Returns Active Galaxy Markarian 1018 to the Shadows

Sep 15, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and NASA’s Chandra and Hubble space telescopes have solved the mystery of a rare change in the behavior...

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the star cluster Terzan 5. Image credit: F. Ferraro / NASA / ESA / ESO.

Astronomers: Star Cluster Terzan 5 is ‘Living Fossil’

Sep 7, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope have revealed the unusual mix of stars in the...

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