ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It operates three sites in Chile — La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor — on behalf of its fourteen member states. It builds ALMA together with international partners, and designs the European Extremely Large Telescope.

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, builds and operates a suite of the world's most advanced ground-based astronomical telescopes.

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Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine
  
A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO.s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its "last meal" in unprecedented detail - a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters, strewn like glittering gems, churning inside Centaurus A.

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