About ESO

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. ESO provides state-of-the-art research facilities to astronomers and is supported by Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Several other countries have expressed an interest in membership.

ESO's main mission, laid down in the 1962 Convention, is to provide state-of-the-art research facilities to astronomers and astrophysicists, allowing them to conduct front-line science in the best conditions. The annual member state contributions to ESO are approximately 135 million Euros and ESO employs around 700 staff members. By building and operating a suite of the world’s most powerful ground-based astronomical telescopes enabling important scientific discoveries, ESO offers numerous possibilities for technology spin-off and transfer, together with high technology contract opportunities and is a dramatic showcase for European industry.

Whilst the Headquarters (comprising the scientific, technical and administrative centre of the organisation) are located in Garching near Munich, Germany, ESO operates, in addition to the Santiago Centre, three unique observing sites in Chile.

At La Silla, ESO operates several medium-sized optical telescopes, including the most successful low-mass exoplanet hunter.

The Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, is located on the 2600 m high mountain of Paranal, which also hosts the VLT Interferometer and two survey telescopes, the VST and VISTA. The third site is the 5000 m high Llano de Chajnantor, near San Pedro de Atacama. Here a submillimetre telescope (APEX) is in operation, and a revolutionary telescope – a giant array of 12 m submillimetre antennas (ALMA) – is being constructed in collaboration with North America, East Asia and Chile.

ESO is currently planning a 42-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

With ESO's telescopes [link], astronomers tackle key questions that challenge our minds and our imagination. Astronomy is the study of origins. It is also the study of grandiose events. And great mysteries. Most of all, however, it is humankind's boldest attempt to understand the world in which we live.

Each year, about 2000 proposals are made for the use of ESO telescopes, requesting between four and six times more nights than are available. ESO is the most productive ground-based observatory in the world, which annually results in many peer-reviewed publications: in 2009 alone, more than 650 refereed papers based on ESO data were published. Moreover, research articles based on VLT data are in the mean quoted twice as often as the average.

The very high efficiency of the ESO's "science machines" now generates huge amounts of data at a very high rate. These are stored in a permanent Science Archive Facility at ESO headquarters. The archive now contains more than 1.5 million images or spectra with a total volume of about 65 terabytes (65,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data. This corresponds to the content of about 30 million books of 1000 pages each; they would occupy more than 1000 kilometres of bookshelves!

ESO also hosts the European Coordinating Facility for the Hubble Space Telescope, a collaboration between ESA and NASA. It's a long-term, space-based observatory. The observations are carried out in visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. In many ways Hubble has revolutionised modern astronomy, by not only being an efficient tool for making new discoveries, but also by driving astronomical research in general.

 

"An almost unique level of international cooperation is achieved at ESO, and everything is done by those who can do it best, irrespective of their country or institution. This spirit of excellence is an example for all Europe."

Mrs. Maria van der Hoeven, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, the Netherlands

A glossary of astronomical terms is also provided, as well as a list of acronyms used at ESO.