Press Releases 1996

Subscribe to esonews mailing list.
eso9603 — Science Release

New 'Moons' of Saturn May Be Transient Objects — ADONIS Observes Pandora, S/1995 S6 and Others

19 January 1996: How many moons has Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system? Until recently, the best answer was eighteen, ranging from innermost Pan that circles the planet 75,000 km above the cloud tops in a little less than 14 hours, to distant Phoebe, 13 million km away in a reverse ('retrograde') 550-day orbit [1]. Now the situation is less clear.
Read more
eso9602 — Organisation Release

ESO and Australia to Discuss Future Collaboration

12 January 1996: For some time, the astronomical community in Australia has expressed interest in closer ties to ESO. One of the main reasons is the construction of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), of which the first 8.2 m unit telescope is scheduled for completion less than 2 years from now.
Read more
eso9601 — Science Release

Maverick Comet Splits During Dramatic Outburst — New ESO Observations of P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3

5 January 1996: A few months ago, Periodic Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 underwent a dramatic and completely unexpected, thousand-fold brightening. At that time, the cause for this interesting event was unknown. However, observations with the two largest ESO telescopes have now shown that the "dirty snowball" nucleus of this comet has recently split into at least four individual pieces. There is little doubt that the outburst and the splitting event(s) are closely related and that the greatly increased dust and gas production is due to "fresh" material of the icy cometary nucleus becoming exposed to the surrounding space for the first time.
Read more
« Previous 1 | 2 | 3  
Showing 41 to 43 of 43


Usage of ESO Images and Videos
Bookmark and Share

Also see our