Tag Archive for 'VLT'

This artist’s conception shows the galaxy merger and its two central black holes. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / M. Weiss, NRAO, AUI & NSF.

UGC 4211’s Pair of Supermassive Black Holes is Closest to Colliding Ever Seen

Jan 11, 2023 by News Staff

While close together in cosmological terms at just 750 light-years apart, or 6x the black hole sphere of influence, the supermassive black holes in the...

This image shows Messier 66, an intermediate spiral galaxy located 31 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

ESO Releases New Image of Spiral Galaxy Messier 66

Dec 13, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This image of Messier 66 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope...

This image of the Southern Ring Nebula was captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI); it highlights the very hot gas that surrounds the central stars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / O. De Marco, Macquarie University / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Multiple Star System Produced Southern Ring Nebula, Webb Astronomers Say

Dec 12, 2022 by News Staff

At least three, and possibly four, progenitor stars crafted the oblong, curvy shapes of the Southern Ring Nebula, according to a new analysis of data from...

An artist’s impression of a tidal disruption event. Image credit: Carl Knox / OzGrav, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, Swinburne University of Technology.

Astronomers Detect Very Luminous Jet from Star-Eating Supermassive Black Hole

Dec 1, 2022 by News Staff

A supermassive black hole devours a star that has come too close. In extremely rare instances — only about 1% of the time — these so-called...

This new view of the Cone Nebula was captured with the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO.

ESO Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary with Stunning View of Cone Nebula

Nov 10, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

On October 5, 1962, five countries agreed to create the European Southern Observatory (ESO) through the signature of a convention. Now, six decades later...

An artist’s impression of the white dwarfs WD J2147-4035 and WD J1922+0233 surrounded by orbiting planetary debris, which will accrete onto the stars and pollute their atmospheres. WD J2147-4035 is extremely red and dim, while WD J1922+0233 is unusually blue. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

Planetary Debris Spotted around 11-Billion-Year-Old White Dwarf

Nov 7, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

WD J2147-4035, an 11-billion-year-old white dwarf located 91 light-years away in the constellation of Grus, is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals,...

This composite image shows Messier 99, a grand design spiral galaxy located 42 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

ESO Releases Incredible Image of Messier 99

Oct 24, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This stunning image shows the well-defined arms of the grand design spiral galaxy Messier 99. This composite image shows Messier 99, a grand design spiral...

This artist’s impression shows an ultrahot exoplanet as it is about to transit in front of its host star. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Barium Detected in Atmospheres of Two Ultrahot Jupiters

Oct 13, 2022 by News Staff

Barium, a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56, is the heaviest element detected to date in any exoplanetary atmosphere. This artist’s...

These images shows Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa with Jupiter in the background. Image credit: ESO / King & Fletcher / NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / OPAL Team.

SPHERE Helps Determine Surface Compositions of Europa and Ganymede

Oct 10, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have imaged Jupiter’s...

This image, taken by the X-SHOOTER instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows light from GRB 210905A (center). Image credit: ESO / Rossi et al.

Astronomers Detect Powerful Blast in Early Universe

Oct 3, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the X-SHOOTER instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have detected light from a gamma-ray burst at a redshift of 6.3, meaning...

The unusual shape of the open cluster NGC 346 is partly due to stars and gas spiraling into the center of the cluster in a river-like motion; the red spiral superimposed on NGC 346 traces the movement of stars and gas toward the center; this spiraling motion is the most efficient way to feed star formation from the outside toward the center of the cluster. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Andi James, STScI.

Astronomers Find Spiraling Stars in NGC 346

Sep 8, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope...

This image, taken with the HAWK-I infrared instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the Sagittarius B1 region. Image credit: ESO / Nogueras-Lara et al.

Astronomers Detect Excess of Young Stars in Sagittarius B1

Aug 29, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Sagittarius B1, a region close to the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, hosts more than 100,000 solar masses of young stars. This image, taken with the...

This image of NGC 7727 was captured by the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO.

VLT Sees Spectacular Cosmic Collision: NGC 7727

Aug 16, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have taken a picture of...

This image, taken by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows Messier 61, a barred spiral galaxy located 52.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. The observations were done as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Focuses on Messier 61

Aug 2, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, astronomers have captured a stunning image...

This artist’s impression shows what the binary system VFTS 243 might look like if we were observing it up close. The system, which is located in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is composed of a hot, blue star with 25 times the Sun’s mass and a black hole, which is at least nine times the mass of the Sun. The sizes of the two binary components are not to scale: in reality, the blue star is about 200,000 times larger than the black hole. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Dormant Stellar-Mass Black Hole Detected in Tarantula Nebula

Jul 18, 2022 by News Staff

The newly-detected black hole is a member of the binary system VFTS 243, which is located in the famous Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This...

The view of the Galactic center observed with the NIRC2 instrument on the Keck II telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory. This image is high-pass filtered and shows the position of several S stars close to Sgr A*, which is indicated by a black cross. The star in the white dashed circle shows a magnitude of 16.3 mag, while the star in the blue circle is 17 mag faint. Here north is up and east is to the left. Image credit: Peissker et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac752f.

Fast-Moving Star Orbits Milky Way’s Central Black Hole in Just Four Years

Jul 6, 2022 by Natali Anderson

The newly-found star, named S4716, reaches a speed of 8,000 km/sec and comes as close as 98 astronomical units (AU) to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black...

This Hubble image shows a blue stellar system. Image credit: Michael Jones.

New Type of Stellar System Discovered

Jun 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted five blue stellar systems — which they say appear through a telescope as blue blobs and are about the size of dwarf galaxies...

This composite image shows the Tarantula Nebula. The background image, taken in the infrared, is itself a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The bright red-yellow streaks that have been superimposed on the image come from radio observations taken by the ALMA, revealing regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form stars. The unique web-like structure of the gas clouds led astronomers to the nebula’s spidery nickname. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / Wong et al. / M.-R. Cioni / VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey / Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

Astronomers Capture Spectacular Image of Tarantula Nebula

Jun 16, 2022 by News Staff

In a new high-resolution image, we see the Tarantula Nebula — a luminous star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of...

This image shows NGC 1087, a barred spiral galaxy some 80 million light-years away in the constellation of Cetus. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / PHANGS.

Astronomers See Star-Forming Material in NGC 1087

Jun 7, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

As part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, astronomers have taken a picture of a barred spiral galaxy called...

This image shows Messier 66, a spiral galaxy some 31 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

VLT Observes Spiral Galaxy Messier 66

May 3, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

ESO has released a beautiful image taken by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) of a large portion of the...

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