ESO Press Releases and Photos 2008

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  • Solar Games at Paranal

    ESO 12/08 - Press Photo:

    Solar Games at Paranal

    Cerro Paranal, home of ESO's Very Large Telescope, is certainly one of the best astronomical sites on the planet. Stunning images, obtained by ESO staff at Paranal, of the green and blue flashes, as well as of the so-called 'Gegenschein', are real cases in point.
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  • Austria Declares Intent To Join ESO

    ESO 11/08 - Organisation Release:

    Austria Declares Intent To Join ESO

    At a press conference today at the University of Vienna's Observatory, the Austrian Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced the decision by the Austrian Government to seek membership of ESO from 1 July this year.
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  • Paranal Receives New Mirror

    ESO 10/08 - Organisation Release:

    Paranal Receives New Mirror

    A 4.1-metre diameter primary mirror, a vital part of the world's newest and fastest survey telescope, VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) has been delivered to its new mountaintop home at Cerro Paranal, Chile.
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  • The Drifting Star

    ESO 09/08 - Science Release:

    The Drifting Star

    By studying in great detail the 'ringing' of a planet-harbouring star, a team of astronomers using ESO's 3.6-m telescope have shown that it must have drifted away from the metal-rich Hyades cluster. This discovery has implications for theories of star and planet formation, and for the dynamics of our Milky Way.
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  • A Burst to See

    ESO 08/08 - Science Release:

    A Burst to See

    On 19 March, Nature was particularly generous and provided astronomers with the wealth of four gamma-ray bursts on the same day. But that was not all: one of them is the most luminous object ever observed in the Universe. Despite being located in a distant galaxy, billions of light years away, it was so bright that it could have been seen, for a brief while, with the unaided eye.
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  • A Giant of Astronomy and a Quantum of Solace - James Bond filming at Paranal

    ESO 007/08 - Organisation Release:

    A Giant of Astronomy and a Quantum of Solace - James Bond filming at Paranal

    Cerro Paranal, the 2600m high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert that hosts ESO's Very Large Telescope, will be the stage for scenes in the next James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace".
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  • Seeing through the Dark

    ESO 06/08 - Science Release:

    Seeing through the Dark

    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.
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  • Light echoes whisper the distance to a star

    ESO 05/08 - Science Release:

    Light echoes whisper the distance to a star

    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.
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  • New Light on Dark Energy

    ESO 04/08 - Science Release:

    New Light on Dark Energy

    Astronomers have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to measure the distribution and motions of thousands of galaxies in the distant Universe. This opens fascinating perspectives to better understand what drives the acceleration of the cosmic expansion and sheds new light on the mysterious dark energy that is thought to permeate the Universe.
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  • The Growing-up of a Star

    ESO 03/08 - Science Release:

    The Growing-up of a Star

    Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer, astronomers have probed the inner parts of the disc of material surrounding a young stellar object, witnessing how it gains its mass before becoming an adult.
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  • Cosmic Interactions

    ESO 02/08 - Press Photo:

    Cosmic Interactions

    An image based on data taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope reveals a triplet of galaxies intertwined in a cosmic dance.
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  • ESO PR Highlights in 2007

    ESO 01/08 - Organisation Release:

    ESO PR Highlights in 2007

    Another great year went by for ESO, the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere.
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