ESO for the Public

Press Releases 2012

eso1253 — Organisation Release

All Systems Go for Highest Altitude Supercomputer — ALMA correlator turns many antennas into one giant telescope

21 December 2012: One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world has now been fully installed and tested at its remote, high altitude site in the Andes of northern Chile. This marks one of the major remaining milestones toward completion of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the most elaborate ground-based telescope in history. The special-purpose ALMA correlator has over 134 million processors and performs up to 17 quadrillion operations per second, a speed comparable to the fastest general-purpose supercomputer in operation today.

eso1252 — Science Release

Stars Reveal the Secrets of Looking Young

19 December 2012: Some people are in great shape at the age of 90, while others are decrepit before they’re 50. We know that how fast people age is only loosely linked to how old they actually are — and may have more to do with their lifestyle. A new study using both the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals that the same is true of star clusters.

eso1251 — Organisation Release

24-armed Giant to Probe Early Lives of Galaxies — KMOS successfully installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope

12 December 2012: A powerful new instrument called KMOS has just been successfully tested on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. KMOS is unique as it will be able to observe not just one, but 24 objects at the same time in infrared light and study the structure simultaneously within each one. It will provide crucial data to help understand how galaxies grew and evolved in the early Universe — and provide it much faster than has been possible up to now. KMOS was built by a consortium of universities and institutes in the United Kingdom and Germany in collaboration with ESO.

eso1250 — Photo Release

Image of the Carina Nebula Marks Inauguration of VLT Survey Telescope

6 December 2012: A spectacular new image of the star-forming Carina Nebula has been captured by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory and released on the occasion of the inauguration of the telescope in Naples today. This picture was taken with the help of Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, during his visit to the observatory on 5 June 2012.

eso1249 — Science Release

Galaxy-wide Echoes from the Past — VLT observations identify very rare new kind of galaxy

5 December 2012: A new galaxy class has been identified using observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Gemini South telescope, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). Nicknamed “green bean galaxies” because of their unusual appearance, these galaxies glow in the intense light emitted from the surroundings of monster black holes and are amongst the rarest objects in the Universe.

eso1248 — Science Release

Even Brown Dwarfs May Grow Rocky Planets — ALMA sizes up grains of cosmic dust around failed star

30 November 2012: Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disc encircling a brown dwarf contains millimetre-sized solid grains like those found in denser discs around newborn stars. The surprising finding challenges theories of how rocky, Earth-scale planets form, and suggests that rocky planets may be even more common in the Universe than expected.

eso1247 — Science Release

Biggest Black Hole Blast Discovered — New ESO observations reveal most powerful quasar outflow ever found

28 November 2012: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever seen, at least five times more powerful than any that have been observed to date. Quasars are extremely bright galactic centres powered by supermassive black holes. Many blast huge amounts of material out into their host galaxies, and these outflows play a key role in the evolution of galaxies. But, until now, observed quasar outflows weren’t as powerful as predicted by theorists.

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.

eso1245 — Science Release

Lost in Space: Rogue Planet Spotted? — Orphaned world may help to explain how planets and stars form

14 November 2012: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope have identified a body that is very probably a planet wandering through space without a parent star. This is the most exciting free-floating planet candidate so far and the closest such object to the Solar System at a distance of about 100 light-years. Its comparative proximity, and the absence of a bright star very close to it, has allowed the team to study its atmosphere in great detail. This object also gives astronomers a preview of the exoplanets that future instruments aim to image around stars other than the Sun.

eso1244 — Science Release

Cosmic Sprinklers Explained — Odd pair of aging stars sculpt spectacular shape of planetary nebula

8 November 2012: Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered a pair of stars orbiting each other at the centre of one of the most remarkable examples of a planetary nebula. The new result confirms a long-debated theory about what controls the spectacular and symmetric appearance of the material flung out into space. The results are published in the 9 November 2012 issue of the journal Science.

eso1243 — Photo Release

Stars Ancient and Modern?

31 October 2012: This colourful view of the globular star cluster NGC 6362 was captured by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. This new picture, along with a new image of the central region from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, provide the best view of this little-known cluster ever obtained. Globular clusters are mainly composed of tens of thousands of very ancient stars, but they also contain some stars that look suspiciously young.

eso1242 — Photo Release

84 Million Stars and Counting — VISTA creates largest ever catalogue of centre of our galaxy

24 October 2012: Using a whopping nine-gigapixel image from the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, an international team of astronomers has created a catalogue of more than 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way. This gigantic dataset contains more than ten times more stars than previous studies and is a major step forward for the understanding of our home galaxy. The image gives viewers an incredible, zoomable view of the central part of our galaxy. It is so large that, if printed with the resolution of a typical book, it would be 9 metres long and 7 metres tall.

eso1241 — Science Release

Planet Found in Nearest Star System to Earth — ESO’s HARPS instrument finds Earth-mass exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B

16 October 2012: European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system — the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.

eso1240 — Organisation Release

Gala Event Celebrates 50 Years of the European Southern Observatory

12 October 2012: On the evening of 11 October 2012 a gala event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Southern Observatory took place in the Kaisersaal of the Munich Residenz in Germany. To mark the occasion, senior representatives of the ESO Member States and its host nation Chile, among them seven Ministers and two Ambassadors, and of the observatory itself, signed a prototype mirror segment of the European Extremely Large Telescope.

eso1239 — Science Release

Surprising Spiral Structure Spotted by ALMA — New observations reveal the secrets of a dying star

10 October 2012: Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered a totally unexpected spiral structure in the material around the old star R Sculptoris. This is the first time that such a structure, along with an outer spherical shell, has been found around a red giant star. It is also the first time that astronomers could get full three-dimensional information about such a spiral. The strange shape was probably created by a hidden companion star orbiting the red giant. This work is one of the first ALMA early science results to be published and it appears in the journal Nature this week.

eso1238 — Organisation Release

ESO Celebrates its 50th Anniversary — Competition winner observes Thor’s Helmet Nebula with the VLT during live broadcast

5 October 2012: Today, 5 October 2012, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is celebrating 50 years since the signing of its founding convention. Over the last half century ESO has become the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory. This morning, for the first time ever, observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope were made of an object chosen by the public. The winner of an anniversary competition pointed the VLT towards the spectacular Thor’s Helmet Nebula and the observations were broadcast live over the internet. To mark the occasion ESO and its partners are organising many other activities in the 15 ESO Member States.

eso1237 — Photo Release

The Rich Colours of a Cosmic Seagull

26 September 2012: This new image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory shows part of a stellar nursery nicknamed the Seagull Nebula. This cloud of gas, formally called Sharpless 2-292, seems to form the head of the seagull and glows brightly due to the energetic radiation from a very hot young star lurking at its heart. The detailed view was produced by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.

eso1236 — Photo Release

A Celestial Witch’s Broom? — A New View of The Pencil Nebula

12 September 2012: The Pencil Nebula is pictured in a new image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. This peculiar cloud of glowing gas is part of a huge ring of wreckage left over after a supernova explosion that took place about 11 000 years ago. This detailed view was produced by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.

eso1235 — Photo Release

A Cluster with a Secret

5 September 2012: A new image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the spectacular globular star cluster Messier 4. This ball of tens of thousands of ancient stars is one of the closest and most studied of the globular clusters and recent work has revealed that one of its stars has strange and unexpected properties, apparently possessing the secret of eternal youth.

eso1234 — Science Release

Sweet Result from ALMA — Building blocks of life found around young star

29 August 2012: A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has spotted sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young Sun-like star. This is the first time sugar been found in space around such a star, and the discovery shows that the building blocks of life are in the right place, at the right time, to be included in planets forming around the star.

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