ESO Press Releases and Photos 2006
ESO 53/06 (24 December 2006) - Press PhotoSeason's Greetings! With ESO PR Photos 53a-c/06. More... |
ESO 52/06 (22 December 2006) - Organisation ReleaseCzech Republic to Become Member of ESO Today, an agreement was signed in Prague between ESO and the Czech Republic, aiming to make the latter become a full member of ESO as of 1 January 2007. With ESO PR Photo 52/06. More... |
ESO 51/06 (22 December 2006) - Press PhotoLittle Brother Joins the Large Family On the night of 15 December 2006, the fourth and last-to-be-installed VLTI Auxiliary Telescope (AT4) obtained its 'First Light'. The first images demonstrate that AT4 will be able to deliver the excellent image quality already delivered by the first three ATs. It will soon join its siblings to perform routinely interferometric measurements. With ESO PR Photos 51a-b/06. More... |
ESO 50/06 (21 December 2006) - Press PhotoPortrait of a Dramatic Stellar Crib A new, stunning image of the cosmic spider, the Tarantula Nebula and its surroundings, finally pays tribute to this amazing, vast and intricately sculpted web of stars and gas. The newly released image, made with ESO's Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-m ESO/MPG Telescope at La Silla, covers 1 square degree on the sky and could therefore contain four times the full Moon. With ESO PR Photos 50a-b/06 and ESO VNR 50/06. More... |
ESO 49/06 (20 December 2006) - Science ReleaseThe Dark Side of Nature: the Crime was Almost Perfect Nature has again thrown astronomers for a loop. Just when they thought they understood how gamma-ray bursts formed, they have uncovered what appears to be evidence for a new kind of cosmic explosion. These seem to arise when a newly born black hole swallows most of the matter from its doomed parent star. With ESO PR Photos 49a-f/06. More... |
ESO 48/06 (20 December 2006) - Press PhotoIt Is Too Early To Be Santa's Sleigh, Isn't It? Astronomers at ESO's frontline Paranal Observatory got a surprise on the morning of 18 December when looking at the observatory's all-sky camera, MASCOT. For about 45 minutes in the early morning, an object appeared first as a bright stripe then as a cloud that dissolved. With ESO PR Photos 48a-c/06. More... |
ESO 47/06 (14 December 2006) - EIROforum ReleaseMagna Carta for Researchers Today, Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research received a statement of support for the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers from EIROforum. With ESO PR Photos 47a-b/06. More... |
ESO 46/06 (11 December 2006) - News ReleaseThe Rise of a Giant European astronomy received a tremendous boost with the decision from ESO's governing body to proceed with detailed studies for the European Extremely Large Telescope. This study, with a budget of 57 million euro, will make it possible to start, in three years time, the construction of an optical/infrared telescope with a diameter in the 30 to 60-m range that will revolutionise ground-based astronomy. With ESO PR Photo 46/06 and ESO VNR 46/06. More... |
ESO 45/06 (6 December 2006) - Science ReleaseDo Galaxies Follow Darwinian Evolution? Using VIMOS on ESO's Very Large Telescope, a team of French and Italian astronomers have shown the strong influence the environment exerts on the way galaxies form and evolve. The scientists have for the first time charted remote parts of the Universe, showing that the distribution of galaxies has considerably evolved with time, depending on the galaxies' immediate surroundings. This surprising discovery poses new challenges for theories of the formation and evolution of galaxies. With ESO PR Photo 45/06. More... |
ESO 44/06 (30 November 2006) - Science ReleaseAsymmetric Ashes Astronomers are reporting remarkable new findings that shed light on a decade-long debate about one kind of supernovae, the explosions that mark a star's final demise: does the star die in a slow burn or with a fast bang? From their observations, the scientists find that the matter ejected by the explosion shows significant peripheral asymmetry but a nearly spherical interior, most likely implying that the explosion finally propagates at supersonic speed. With ESO PR Photo 44/06. More... |
ESO 43/06 (11 November 2006) - Press PhotoThe Topsy-Turvy Galaxy ESO's VLT has taken an image of the starburst galaxy NGC 1313, whose captivating appearance belies its inner turmoil. The dense clustering of bright stars and gas in its arms, a sign of an ongoing boom of star births, shows a mere glimpse of the rough times it has seen. Probing ever deeper into the heart of the galaxy, astronomers have revealed many enigmas that continue to defy our understanding. With ESO PR Photos 43a-b/06. More... |
ESO 42/06 (12 November 2006) - Organisation NewsCatch a Star! ESO and the European Association for Astronomy Education are launching today the 2007 edition of 'Catch a Star!', their international astronomy competition for school students. Now in its fifth year, the competition offers students the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime trip to ESO's flagship observatory in Chile, as well as many other prizes. Students are invited to 'become astronomers' and embark on a journey to explore the Universe. More... |
ESO 41/06 (7 November 2006) - Science ReleaseCut from Different Cloth A large survey, made with ESO's VLT, has shed light on our Galaxy's ancestry. After determining the chemical composition of over 2000 stars in the four nearest dwarf galaxies to our own, astronomers have demonstrated fundamental differences in their make-up, casting doubt on the theory that these diminutive galaxies could ever have formed the building blocks of our Milky Way Galaxy. With ESO PR Photo 41/06. More... |
ESO 40/06 (22 October 2006) - Organisation NewsExtremely Large Telescope Project Selected in ESFRI Roadmap In its first Roadmap, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) choose the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), for which ESO is presently developing a Reference Design, as one of the large scale projects to be conducted in astronomy, and the only one in optical astronomy. The aim of the ELT project is to build before the end of the next decade an optical/near-infrared telescope with a diameter in the 30-60m range. More... |
ESO 39/06 (19 October 2006) - Science ReleaseThe Star, the Dwarf and the Planet 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. With ESO PR Photos 39a-b/06. More... |
ESO 38/06 (4 October 2006) - Science ReleaseIncreasing the Odds of the Sweep Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have confirmed the extrasolar planet status of two of the 16 candidates discovered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. One of the two confirmed exoplanets has a mass a little below 10 Jupiter masses, while the other is less than 3.8 Jupiter masses. With ESO PR Photos 38a-b/06. More... |
ESO 37/06 (2 October 2006) - Science ReleaseStellar Vampires Unmasked Astronomers have found possible proofs of stellar vampirism in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, they found that some hot, bright, and apparently young stars in the cluster present less carbon and oxygen than the majority of their sisters. This indicates that these few stars likely formed by taking their material from another star. With ESO PR Photo 37/06. More... |
ESO 36/06 (28 September 2006) - Science ReleaseWatching How Planets Form With the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have mapped the disc around a star more massive than the Sun. The very extended and flared disc most likely contains enough gas and dust to spawn planets. It appears as a precursor of debris discs such as the one around Vega-like stars and thus provides the rare opportunity to witness the conditions prevailing prior to or during planet formation. With ESO PR Photo 36/06 and ESO PR Video 36/06. More... |
ESO 35/06 (20 September 2006) - Science ReleaseTo Be or Not to Be: Is It All About Spinning? Thanks to the unique possibilities offered by ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), astronomers have solved a 140-year-old mystery concerning active hot stars. They indeed show that the star Alpha Arae is spinning almost on the verge of breaking and that its disc rotates the same way planets do around the Sun. With ESO PR Photo 35/06. More... |
ESO 34/06 (12 September 2006) - Science ReleaseA "Genetic Study" of the Galaxy Looking in detail at the composition of stars with ESO's VLT, astronomers are providing a fresh look at the history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. They reveal that the central part of our Galaxy formed not only very quickly but also independently of the rest. With ESO PR Photos 34a-b/06. More... |
ESO 33/06 (31 August 2006) - Science ReleaseLong-lasting but Dim Brethren of Cosmic Flashes Astronomers, using ESO's Very Large Telescope, have for the first time made the link between an X-ray flash and a supernova. Such flashes are the little siblings of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and this discovery suggests the existence of a population of events less luminous than 'classical' GRBs, but possibly much more numerous. With ESO PR Photo 33/06. More... |
ESO 32/06 (24 August 2006) - Organisation ReleaseCatherine Cesarsky elected President of the International Astronomical Union and Ian Corbett elected Assistant General Secretary The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), meeting in Prague (Czech Republic), has elected the ESO Director General, Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, as President for a three-year period (2006-2009). The IAU is a body of distinguished professional astronomers, founded in 1919 to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. It now has almost 10 000 individual members drawn from all continents. Dr. Cesarsky is the first woman to receive this high distinction. At the same General Assembly, Dr. Ian Corbett, ESO's Deputy Director General, was elected Assistant General Secretary for 2006-2009, with the expectation of becoming General Secretary in 2009-2012. With ESO PR Photo 32/06. More... |
ESO 31/06 (17 August 2006) - Science ReleaseFar Away Galaxy Under The Microscope An international group of astronomers have discovered large disc galaxies akin to our Milky Way that must have formed on a rapid time scale, only 3 billion years after the Big Bang. In one of these systems, the combination of adaptive optics techniques with the new SINFONI spectrograph on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) resulted in a record-breaking resolution of a mere 0.15 arcsecond, giving an unprecedented detailed view of the anatomy of such a distant proto-disc galaxy. With ESO PR Photos 31a-b/06 and ESO PR Video 31/06. More... |
ESO 30/06 (10 August 2006) - Science ReleaseStars Too Old to be Trusted? Analysing a set of stars in a globular cluster with ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers may have found the solution to a critical cosmological and stellar riddle. Until now, an embarrassing question was why the abundance of lithium produced in the Big Bang is a factor 2 to 3 times higher than the value measured in the atmospheres of old stars. The answer, the researchers say, lies in the fact that the abundances of elements measured in a star's atmosphere decrease with time. With ESO PR Photo 30/06. More... |
ESO 29/06 (4 August 2006) - Science ReleaseThe 'Planemo' Twins The cast of exoplanets has an extraordinary new member. Using ESO's telescopes, astronomers have discovered an approximately seven-Jupiter-mass companion to an object that is itself only twice as hefty. Both objects have masses similar to those of extra-solar giant planets, but they are not in orbit around a star - instead they appear to circle each other. The existence of such a double system puts strong constraints on formation theories of free-floating planetary mass objects. With ESO PR Photos 29a-b/06. More... |
ESO 28/06 (3 August 2006) - Science ReleaseA Sub-Stellar Jonah Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered a rather unusual system, in which two planet-size stars, of different colours, orbit each other. One is a rather hot white dwarf, weighing a little bit less than half as much as the Sun. The other is a much cooler, 55 Jupiter-masses brown dwarf. With ESO PR Photos 28a-b/06. More... |
ESO 27/06 (26 July 2006) - Press PhotoIsland Universes with a Twist If life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you will get - the Universe, with its immensely large variety of galaxies, must be a real candy store! ESO's Very Large Telescope has taken images of three different "Island Universes", each amazing in their own way, whose curious shapes testify of a troubled past, and for one, of a foreseeable doomed future. With ESO PR Photos 27a-c/06. More... |
ESO 26/06 (21 July 2006) - Science ReleaseLooking Deep with Infrared Eyes Today, British astronomers are releasing the first data from the largest and most sensitive survey of the heavens in infrared light to the ESO user community. The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) has completed the first of seven years of data collection, studying objects that are too faint to see at visible wavelengths, such as very distant or very cool objects. New data on young galaxies is already challenging current thinking on galaxy formation, revealing galaxies that are massive at a much earlier stage of development than expected. These first science results already show how powerful the full survey will be at finding rare objects that hold vital clues to how stars and galaxies in our Universe formed. With ESO PR Photos 26a-b/06. More... |
ESO 25/06 (18 July 2006) - Organisation ReleaseTowards a European Extremely Large Telescope ESO, the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, is taking an important step towards the realisation of a new, giant telescope for Europe's astronomers, by creating the ESO Extremely Large Telescope Project Office. It will be headed by Jason Spyromilio, formerly La Silla Paranal Observatory Director. More... |
ESO 24/06 (13 July 2006) - Instrument ReleaseSub-millimetre Astronomy in Full Swing on Southern Skies The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) 12-m sub-millimetre telescope lives up to the ambitions of the scientists by providing access to the "Cold Universe" with unprecedented sensitivity and image quality. As a demonstration, no less than 26 articles based on early science with APEX are published this week in the research journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Among the many new findings, most in the field of star formation and astrochemistry, are the discovery of a new interstellar molecule, and the detection of light emitted at 0.2 mm from CO molecules, as well as light coming from a charged molecule composed of two forms of Hydrogen. With ESO PR Photos 24a-b/06. More... |
ESO 23/06 (3 July 2006) - Science ReleaseFalling Onto the Dark ESO's VLT has helped scientists to discover a large primordial 'blob', more than 10 billion light-years away. The most likely scenario to account for its existence and properties is that it represents the early stage in the formation of a galaxy, when gas falls onto a large clump of dark matter. With ESO PR Photo 23/06. More... |
ESO 22/06 (28 June 2006) - Press PhotoThe Hooked Galaxy Life is not easy, even for galaxies. Some indeed get so close to their neighbours that they get rather distorted. But such encounters between galaxies have another effect: they spawn new generations of stars, some of which explode. ESO's VLT has obtained a unique vista of a pair of entangled galaxies, in which a star exploded. With ESO PR Photo 22/06. More... |
ESO 21/06 (19 June 2006) - Organisation NewsESO and Chile: 10 Years of Productive Scientific Collaboration ESO and the Government of Chile launched today the book "10 Years Exploring the Universe", written by the beneficiaries of the ESO-Chile Joint Committee. This annual fund provides grants for individual Chilean scientists, research infrastructures, scientific congresses, workshops for science teachers and astronomy outreach programmes for the public. With ESO PR Photo 21/06. More... |
ESO 20/06 (8 June 2006) - Press PhotoThe Toucan's Diamond The Southern constellation Tucana (the Toucan) is probably best known as the home of the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. But Tucana also hosts another famous object that shines thousands of lights, like a magnificent, oversized diamond in the sky: the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. More popularly known as 47 Tuc, it is surpassed in size and brightness by only one other globular cluster, Omega Centauri. With ESO PR Photo 20/06. More... |
ESO 19/06 (6 June 2006) - Science ReleaseDo 'Planemos' Have Progeny? 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. With ESO PR Photos 19a-b/06. More... Appendix: Recent developments on Exoplanets at ESO More... |
ESO 18/06 (18 May 2006) - Science ReleaseTrio of Neptunes and their Belt Using the ultra-precise HARPS spectrograph on ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La Silla (Chile), a team of European astronomers have discovered that a nearby star is host to three Neptune-mass planets. The innermost planet is most probably rocky, while the outermost is the first known Neptune-mass planet to reside in the habitable zone. This unique system is likely further enriched by an asteroid belt. With three roughly equal-mass planets, one being in the habitable zone, and an asteroid belt, this planetary system shares many properties with our own solar system. With ESO PR Photos 18a-e/06. More... |
ESO 17/06 (11 May 2006) - Press PhotoTwin Explosions In Gigantic Dusty Potato Crisp ESO's Very Large Telescope, equipped with the multi-mode FORS instrument, took an image of NGC 3190, a galaxy so distorted that astronomers gave it two names. And as if to prove them right, in 2002 it fired off, almost simultaneously, two stellar explosions, a very rare event. With ESO PR Photo 17/06. More... |
ESO 16/06 (8 May 2006) - Science ReleasePhysics in Universe's Youth Using a quasar located 12.3 billion light-years away as a beacon, a team of astronomers detected the presence of molecular hydrogen in the farthest system ever, an otherwise invisible galaxy that we observe when the Universe was less than 1.5 billion years old, that is, about 10% of its present age. The astronomers find that there is about one hydrogen molecule for 250 hydrogen atoms. A similar set of observations for two other quasars, together with the most precise laboratory measurements, allows scientists to infer that the ratio of the proton to electron masses may have changed with time. If confirmed, this would have important consequences on our understanding of physics. With ESO PR Photo 16/06. More... |
ESO 15/06 (25 April 2006) - Press PhotoThe Comet With a Broken Heart On the night of April 23 to 24, ESO's Very Large Telescope observed fragment B of the comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 that had split a few days earlier. To their great surprise, the ESO astronomers discovered that the piece just ejected by fragment B was splitting again! Five other mini-comets are also visible on the image. The comet seems thus doomed to disintegrate but the question remains in how much time. With ESO PR Photos 15a-c/06. More... |
ESO 14/06 (14 April 2006) - Press PhotoThe Great Easter Egg Hunt: The Void's Incredible Richness 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. With ESO PR Photos 14a-c/06. More... |
ESO 13/06 (7 April 2006) - Press PhotoCosmic Spider is Good Mother Hanging above the Large Magellanic Cloud - one of our closest galaxies - in what some describe as a frightening sight, the Tarantula nebula is worth looking at in detail. With ESO PR Photos 13a-e/06. More... |
ESO 12/06 (28 March 2006) - EIROforum releaseBringing Science out of the Lab into the Classroom Today, Europe's major research organisations launch Science in School, the first international, multidisciplinary journal for innovative science teaching, to provide a platform for communication between science teachers, practising scientists and other stakeholders in science education. With ESO PR Photo 12/06. More... |
ESO 11/06 (22 March 2006) - Science releaseThe Sun's New Exotic Neighbour At a time when astronomers are peering into the most distant Universe, looking at objects as far as 13 billion light-years away, one may think that our close neighbourhood would be very well known. Not so. Astronomers still find new star-like objects in our immediate vicinity. Using ESO's VLT, they just discovered a companion to the red star SCR 1845-6357, the 36th closest star to the Sun. With ESO PR Photos 11a-d/06. More... |
ESO 10/06 (15 March 2006) - Science releaseThe Cosmic Dance of Distant Galaxies Studying several tens of distant galaxies, an international team of astronomers found that galaxies had the same amount of dark matter relative to stars 6 billion years ago as they have now. If confirmed, this suggests a much closer interplay between dark and normal matter than previously believed. The scientists also found that as many as 4 out of 10 galaxies are out of balance. These results shed a new light on how galaxies form and evolve since the Universe was only half its current age. With ESO PR Photos 10a-c/06. More... |
ESO 09/06 (28 February 2006) - Science releaseCepheids and their 'Cocoons' Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at Cerro Paranal, Chile, and the CHARA Interferometer at Mount Wilson, California, a team of French and North American astronomers has discovered envelopes around three Cepheids, including the Pole star. This is the first time that matter is found surrounding members of this important class of rare and very luminous stars whose luminosity varies in a very regular way. With ESO PR Photo 09/06. More... |
ESO 08/06 (23 February 2006) - Press PhotoA Blast To Chase ESO's Very Large Telescope took another amazing image, this time of Supernova 2006X inside the Messier 100 spiral galaxy. With ESO PR Photos 08a-b/06. More... |
ESO 07/06 (23 February 2006) - Instrument ReleaseMan-made Star Shines in the Southern Sky Scientists celebrate another major milestone at Cerro Paranal in Chile, home of ESO's Very Large Telescope array. Thanks to their dedicated efforts, they were able to create the first artificial star in the Southern Hemisphere, allowing astronomers to study the Universe in the finest detail. This artificial laser guide star makes it possible to apply adaptive optics systems, that counteract the blurring effect of the atmosphere, almost anywhere in the sky. With ESO PR Photos 07a-c/06 and Video clip 07/06. More... |
ESO 06/06 (15 February 2006) - Science ReleaseThe Invisible Galaxies That Could Not Hide Astronomers, using the unique capabilities offered by the high-resolution spectrograph UVES on ESO's Very Large Telescope, have found a metal-rich hydrogen cloud in the distant universe. The result may help to solve the missing metal problem and provides insight on how galaxies form. With ESO PR Photo 06/06. More... |
ESO 05/06 (13 February 2006) - Organisation NewsSpain to Join ESO Today, during a ceremony in Madrid, an agreement was signed by the Spanish Minister of Education and Science, Mrs. María Jesús San Segundo, and the ESO Director General, Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, affirming their commitment to securing Spanish membership of ESO. With ESO PR Photos 05a-b/06. More... |
ESO 04/06 (7 February 2006) - Press PhotoHow to Steal a Million Stars? Based on observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope, a team of Italian astronomers reports that the stellar cluster Messier 12 must have lost to our Milky Way galaxy close to one million low-mass stars. With ESO PR Photos 04a-b/06. More... |
ESO 03/06 (25 January 2006) - Science ReleaseIt's Far, It's Small, It's Cool: It's an Icy Exoplanet! Astronomers discovered a new extrasolar planet significantly more Earth-like than any other planet found so far. The planet, which is only about 5 times as massive as the Earth, circles its parent star in about 10 years. The planet most certainly has a rocky/icy surface. Its discovery marks a groundbreaking result in the search for planets that support life. With ESO PR Photos 03a-b/06. More... |
ESO 02/06 (4 January 2006) - Science ReleaseMeasuring the Size of a Small, Frost World Observing a very rare occultation of a star by Pluto's satellite Charon from three different sites, including Paranal, home of the VLT, astronomers were able to determine with great accuracy the radius and density of the satellite to the farthest planet. With ESO PR Photos 02a-c/06. More... |
ESO 01/06 (3 January 2006) - Press PhotoESO PR Highlights in 2005 2005 was the year of Physics. It was thus also in part the year of astronomy and this is clearly illustrated by the numerous breakthroughs that were achieved, in particular using ESO's telescopes. More... |