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eso1246 — Science Release

Dwarf Planet Makemake Lacks Atmosphere — Distant frigid world reveals its secrets for the first time

21 November 2012: Astronomers have used three telescopes at ESO’s observatories in Chile to observe the dwarf planet Makemake as it drifted in front of a distant star and blocked its light. The new observations have allowed them to check for the first time whether Makemake is surrounded by an atmosphere. This chilly world has an orbit lying in the outer Solar System and was expected to have an atmosphere like Pluto (eso0908), but this is now shown not to be the case. The scientists also measured Makemake’s density for the first time. The new results are to be published in the 22 November issue of the journal Nature.

eso1144 — Science Release

Lutetia: a Rare Survivor from the Birth of the Earth

11 November 2011: New observations indicate that the asteroid Lutetia is a leftover fragment of the same original material that formed the Earth, Venus and Mercury. Astronomers have combined data from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, ESO’s New Technology Telescope, and NASA telescopes. They found that the properties of the asteroid closely match those of a rare kind of meteorites found on Earth and thought to have formed in the inner parts of the Solar System. Lutetia must, at some point, have moved out to its current location in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

eso1133 — Photo Release

Young Stars Take a Turn in the Spotlight

7 September 2011: ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has captured a striking image of the open cluster NGC 2100. This brilliant star cluster is around 15 million years old, and located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The cluster is surrounded by glowing gas from the nearby Tarantula Nebula.

eso1029 — Science Release

Unravelling the Mystery of Massive Star Birth — All Stars are Born the Same Way

14 July 2010: Astronomers have obtained the first image of a dusty disc closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as their smaller brethren. This discovery, made thanks to a combination of ESO’s telescopes, is described in an article in this week’s issue of Nature.

eso1014 — Photo Release

The Light and Dark Face of a Star-Forming Nebula

31 March 2010: Today, ESO is unveiling an image of the little known Gum 19, a faint nebula that, in the infrared, appears dark on one half and bright on the other. On one side hot hydrogen gas is illuminated by a supergiant blue star called V391 Velorum. New star formation is taking place within the ribbon of luminous and dark material that brackets V391 Velorum’s left in this perspective. After many millennia, these fledgling stars, coupled with the explosive demise of V391 Velorum as a supernova, will likely alter Gum 19’s present Janus-like appearance.

eso0944 — Photo Release

Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine

20 November 2009: 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.

eso0925 — Photo Release

New portrait of Omega Nebula's glistening watercolours

7 July 2009: The Omega Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant stars illuminate and sculpt a vast pastel fantasy of dust and gas, is revealed in all its glory by a new ESO image.

eso0916 — Science Release

Solar wind tans young asteroids

22 April 2009: A new study published in Nature this week reveals that asteroid surfaces age and redden much faster than previously thought — in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid. This study has finally confirmed that the solar wind is the most likely cause of very rapid space weathering in asteroids. This fundamental result will help astronomers relate the appearance of an asteroid to its actual history and identify any after effects of a catastrophic impact with another asteroid.

eso0846 — Science Release

Unprecedented 16-Year Long Study Tracks Stars Orbiting Milky Way Black Hole

10 December 2008: In a 16-year long study, using several of ESO's flagship telescopes, a team of German astronomers has produced the most detailed view ever of the surroundings of the monster lurking at our Galaxy's heart — a supermassive black hole. The research has unravelled the hidden secrets of this tumultuous region by mapping the orbits of almost 30 stars, a five-fold increase over previous studies. One of the stars has now completed a full orbit around the black hole.

eso0834 — Photo Release

Born from the Wind — Unique Multi-wavelength Portrait of Star Birth

8 October 2008: Telescopes on the ground and in space have teamed up to compose a colourful image that offers a fresh look at the history of the star-studded region NGC 346. This new, ethereal portrait, in which different wavelengths of light swirl together like watercolours, reveals new information about how stars form.

eso0806 — Science Release

Seeing through the Dark — Mapping the interior of interstellar clouds in great detail

7 March 2008: Astronomers have measured the distribution of mass inside a dark filament in a molecular cloud with an amazing level of detail and to great depth. The measurement is based on a new method that looks at the scattered near-infrared light or 'cloudshine' and was made with ESO's New Technology Telescope. Associated with the forthcoming VISTA telescope, this new technique will allow astronomers to better understand the cradles of newborn stars.

eso0805 — Science Release

Light echoes whisper the distance to a star — Astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the Universe

11 February 2008: Taking advantage of the presence of light echoes, a team of astronomers have used an ESO telescope to measure, at the 1% precision level, the distance of a Cepheid - a class of variable stars that constitutes one of the first steps in the cosmic distance ladder.

eso0712 — Science Release

Star Family Seen Through Dusty Fog — New Globular Cluster Found in Milky Way

13 March 2007: Images made with ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla by a team of German astronomers reveal a rich circular cluster of stars in the inner parts of our Galaxy. Located 30,000 light-years away, this previously unknown closely-packed group of about 100,000 stars is most likely a new globular cluster.

eso0711 — Science Release

Solar Power at Play — Observing the Spin-Up of an Asteroid

7 March 2007: For the very first time, astronomers have witnessed the speeding up of an asteroid's rotation, and have shown that it is due to a theoretical effect predicted but never seen before. The international team of scientists used an armada of telescopes to discover that the asteroid's rotation period currently decreases by 1 millisecond every year, as a consequence of the heating of the asteroid's surface by the Sun. Eventually it may spin faster than any known asteroid in the solar system and even break apart.

eso0707 — Photo Release

The Celestial Whirligig — Unique Observations of Comet McNaught Reveal Sprinkling Nucleus

23 February 2007: Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, has been delighting those who have seen it with the unaided eye as a spectacular display in the evening sky. Pushing ESO's New Technology Telescope to its limits, a team of European astronomers have obtained the first, and possibly unique, detailed observations of this object. Their images show spectacular jets of gas from the comet spiralling several thousands of kilometres into space, while the spectra reveal the presence of sodium in its atmosphere, something seen very rarely.

eso0639 — Science Release

The Star, the Dwarf and the Planet — First Directly Imaged Brown Dwarf Companion to an Exoplanet Host Star

19 October 2006: Astronomers have detected a new faint companion to the star HD 3651, already known to host a planet. This companion, a brown dwarf, is the faintest known companion of an exoplanet host star imaged directly and one of the faintest T dwarfs detected in the Solar neighbourhood so far. The detection yields important information on the conditions under which planets form.

eso0619 — Science Release

Do 'Planemos' Have Progeny? — Planetary-Mass Objects Found to be Surrounded by Discs

6 June 2006: Two new studies, based on observations made with ESO's telescopes, show that objects only a few times more massive than Jupiter are born with discs of dust and gas, the raw material for planet making. This suggests that miniature versions of the solar system may circle objects that are some 100 times less massive than our Sun.

eso0614 — Photo Release

The Great Easter Egg Hunt: The Void's Incredible Richness — Huge Astronomical Image of 'Empty Space' Obtained with ESO Telescope

14 April 2006: An image made of about 300 million pixels is being released by ESO, based on more than 64 hours of observations with the Wide-Field Camera on the 2.2m telescope at La Silla (Chile). The image covers an 'empty' region of the sky five times the size of the full moon, opening an exceptionally clear view towards the most distant part of our universe. It reveals objects that are 100 million times fainter than what the unaided eye can see.

eso0518 — Science Release

Preparing for the Impact — ESO Telescopes Take Snapshot of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 in Readiness for Major Observation Campaign

30 May 2005: On July 4, 2005, the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft will visit Comet 9P/Tempel 1. It will launch a 360 kg impactor that should produce a crater on the surface of the comet and a plume of gas and dust.

eso0513 — Photo Release

The Blob, the Very Rare Massive Star and the Two Populations — Striking Image of Nebula N214C taken with ESO's NTT at La Silla

22 April 2005: The nebula N214 [1] is a large region of gas and dust located in a remote part of our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. N214 is a quite remarkable site where massive stars are forming. In particular, its main component, N214C (also named NGC 2103 or DEM 293), is of special interest since it hosts a very rare massive star, known as Sk-71 51 [2] and belonging to a peculiar class with only a dozen known members in the whole sky. N214C thus provides an excellent opportunity for studying the formation site of such stars.

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