Pressmeddelanden 2009

26 augusti 2009: ESO har släppt en ny bild av Trifidnebulosan som visar varför den är en favorit bland både proffs- och amatörastronomer. Denna jättelika stjärnfabrik, som har fått sitt namn av de mörka stoftband som delar dess glödande hjärta i tre delar, utgör en sällsynt kombination av tre olika nebulosatyper. I Trifiden avslöjas nytända stjärnors starka sken och skvallrar om ännu ofödda generationer av stjärnor.

19 augusti 2009: I dessa nysläppta bilder från ESO dyker vi djupt in i hjärtat av ett kosmiskt moln. I molnet, som kallas RCW 38, trängs framtidens stjärnor och planetsystem. Där bombarderar unga stjärnor knappt flygfärdiga solar och planeter med kraftiga vindar och ett lika kraftigt sken, understödda av kortlivade, tunga stjärnor som exploderar som supernovor. I vissa fall kokar processen bort den materia som senare skulle kunna bli till nya solsystem. Forskare tror att vårt eget solsystem kom till i just en sådan miljö.

5 augusti 2009: ESO har släppt en svindlande ny bild av ett stjärnfält i den södra stjärnbilden Kölen. Denna imponerande syn sprakar med stjärnor i alla ljusstyrkor och nyanser, några av dem mot en fond av moln av gas och stoft. En ovanlig stjärna i mitten av molnet, HD 87643, har studerats noga med flera ESO-teleskop, bland dem VLTI, Very Large Telescope Interferometer. Stjärnan – omgiven av en komplex, utsträckt nebulosa som är slutprodukten efter tidigare våldsamma utkastningar – har visat sig ha en kompanjon. Växelverkningar i detta dubbelstjärnesystem, som omges av en stoftrik skiva, kan vara motorn som driver den märkvärdiga nebulosan.

29 juli 2009: Två forskarlag har använt ESO:s jätteteleskop VLT i Chile för att ta några av de skarpaste bilderna någonsin på stjärnan. Bilderna ger nya insikter i hur sådana bjässar till stjärnor skapar sina mäktiga stjärnvindar.

16 juli 2009: Nu har ESO släppt en ny och häpnadsväckande bild av himlen runt Örnnebulosan, en stjärnornas barnkammare där nyfödda stjärnhopar skulpterar monsterliknande kolumner av stoft och gas.

7 juli 2009: Omeganebulosan är en stjärnornas barnkammare där mycket unga stjärnor lyser upp omgivningen och skulpterar ett vidsträckt, pastellfärgat sagolandskap ur stoft och gas. I en ny bild från ESO framträder den i all sin prakt.

1 juli 2009: Astronomer har avtäckt en makalös ny atlas över vår hemgalax Vintergatans inre delar, där tusentals hittills okända täta moln av kallt kosmiskt stoft – framtida födelseställen för unga stjärnor – ligger utströdda i rymden. Kartläggningen, som har skapats med observationer från teleskopet APEX i Chile, är den största hittills av galaxens kalla stoft. Den kommer att bli en ovärderlig karta inför observationer med det kommande teleskopet ALMA och med ESA:s nyligen uppsända rymdteleskop Herschel

25 juni 2009: Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way’s particle accelerators. They show in a paper published today on Science Express that cosmic rays from our galaxy are very efficiently accelerated in the remnants of exploded stars.

18 juni 2009: The next generation of instruments for ground-based telescopes took a leap forward with the development of a new ultra-fast camera that can take 1500 finely exposed images per second even when observing extremely faint objects. The first 240x240 pixel images with the world's fastest high precision faint light camera were obtained through a collaborative effort between ESO and three French laboratories from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (CNRS/INSU). Cameras such as this are key components of the next generation of adaptive optics instruments of Europe's ground-based astronomy flagship facility, the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT).

4 juni 2009: Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have obtained one of the sharpest views ever of the Arches Cluster — an extraordinary dense cluster of young stars near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Despite the extreme conditions astronomers were surprised to find the same proportions of low- and high-mass young stars in the cluster as are found in more tranquil locations in our Milky Way.

25 maj 2009: ESO’s Very Large Telescope — Europe’s flagship facility for ground-based astronomy — has been equipped with the first of its second generation instruments: X-shooter. It can record the entire spectrum of a celestial object in one shot — from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared — with high sensitivity. This unique new instrument will be particularly useful for the study of distant exploding objects called gamma-ray bursts.

20 maj 2009: Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have succeeded in measuring the size of giant galaxy Messier 87 and were surprised to find that its outer parts have been stripped away by still unknown effects. The galaxy also appears to be on a collision course with another giant galaxy in this very dynamic cluster.

6 maj 2009: Scientists and engineers working on the world's largest ground-based astronomical project, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have achieved another milestone — the successful linking of two ALMA astronomical antennas, synchronised with a precision of one millionth of a millionth of a second — to observe the planet Mars. ALMA is under construction by an international partnership in the Chilean Andes.

28 april 2009: ESO's Very Large Telescope has shown that a faint gamma-ray burst detected last Thursday is the signature of the explosion of the earliest, most distant known object in the Universe (a redshift of 8.2). The explosion apparently took place more than 13 billion years ago, only about 600 million years after the Big Bang.

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.

21 april 2009: Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, “e”, in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. These amazing discoveries are the outcome of more than four years of observations using the most successful low-mass-exoplanet hunter in the world, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.

4 april 2009: To celebrate the 100 Hours of Astronomy, ESO is sharing two stunning images of unusual galaxies, both belonging to the Sculptor group of galaxies. The images, obtained at two of ESO’s observatories at La Silla and Paranal in Chile, illustrate the beauty of astronomy.

30 mars 2009: A live 24-hour free public video webcast, “Around the World in 80 Telescopes”, will take place from 3 April 09:00 UT/GMT to 4 April 09:00 UT/GMT, chasing day and night around the globe to let viewers “visit” some of the most advanced astronomical telescopes on and off the planet. The webcast, organised by ESO for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), is the first time that so many large observatories have been linked together for a public event.

24 mars 2009: ESO’s La Silla Observatory, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, became the largest astronomical observatory of its time. It led Europe to the frontline of astronomical research, and is still one of the most scientifically productive in ground-based astronomy.

16 mars 2009: The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises — interlopers both far and near.