Announcements

25 October 2024: After years of work, and thousands of edge sensors and actuators later, the last batches of these high-tech pieces for the main mirror of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) have been completed. With a diameter of 39 metres, this mirror (M1) is the largest ever made for an optical telescope; too large to be made of a single piece, it consists instead of 798 individual segments. Each hexagonal segment will have multiple sensors attached to its edges, and will be mounted on three position actuators. The edge sensors, around 4500 pairs, and actuators, about 2400, are critical to precisely adjust the position of all segments and make them work as a single unit. To achieve a mirror shape with a perfect, smooth curvature, the edge sensors will measure potential misalignments, which are then corrected by the ultra-precise actuators. The sensors for the ELT are the most accurate to ever be ...

30 September 2024: Today, at a ceremony near Munich, staff from ESO and German company TOPTICA celebrated the completion of the last laser source of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Lasers for the GRAVITY+ upgrade to ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have also been completed. The ELT will be equipped with six powerful lasers [1] that will excite sodium atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere, creating artificial stars. These ‘stars’ are used to measure the blurring caused by the atmosphere so that the ELT’s adaptive mirrors can correct for it. By employing sophisticated "adaptive-optics" systems, the telescope and its instruments can obtain sharper images than any other ground-based telescope. TOPTICA, in partnership with the Canadian company MPB Communications Inc. (MPBC), has just completed production of a series of 9 laser sources, which generate the laser light. Six of these will be used on the ELT and three on GRAVITY+, an extensive upgrade being ...

4 September 2024: The unique five-mirror design of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has been driving innovation in optics and engineering throughout its inception, and today is no exception: the cell of the ELT’s fifth mirror, M5, has been completed. M5 is the largest tip-tilt mirror in the world, and its impressive support cell will be able to steer the light gathered by the telescope up to 10 times per second to stabilise the images collected by the ELT. The M5 cell is a support mechanism that will be fixed to the ELT, uniting the M5 mirror to the larger ELT framework. It was designed, constructed, and tested by the Spanish company Sener at their facilities near Barcelona, Spain; Sener are also responsible for the corresponding control system and auxiliary equipment. ESO’s Director General Xavier Barcons and ESO’s ELT Programme Manager Roberto Tamai visited the company's premises today to celebrate the provisional acceptance ...

3 September 2024: The Multi-AO Imaging Camera for Deep Observations (MICADO), the powerful high-resolution camera for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), has passed its final design review, marking an important milestone on its road to operation later this decade. Once complete, MICADO will offer astronomers the ability to take images of the Universe at an unprecedented depth. The purpose of this last part of the multi-stage final design review (FDR) was to provide a wrap-up of the design process that has been going on for several years. While manufacturing usually begins only after the FDR is passed, the green light for manufacturing many of its components and sub-systems was already given previously, to enable the MICADO project to continue progressing towards ELT’s first light. To complete the design review, members of the consortium worked with ESO staff to clarify the remaining open issues about the instrument design. The passing of this milestone will ...

30 August 2024: The third edition of the Big Science Business Forum, a biannual event bringing together over 1000 participants from industry and academia to discuss the future prospects of the Big Science Market, is taking place in Trieste, Italy, from 1 to 4 October 2024. The programme for the event is now online. The congress has a focus on high technology and innovation, and aims to be the main meeting point between research infrastructures and industry in Europe. It provides an excellent occasion for companies from across the continent to get fully informed about Big Science projects and associated business opportunities. ESO, a leading Big Science organisation, is one of the organisers of the Big Science Business Forum. In this year’s edition (BSBF2024), several speakers from ESO will deliver presentations, including a keynote address from ESO’s Director General, Xavier Barcons. ESO will also be present at the BSBF2024 exhibition. We invite all ...

14 August 2024: The ESO Annual Report 2023 is now available online. The 2023 report has been comprehensively redesigned and restructured, presenting ESO’s activities from the past year in a new, engaging and more visual way. Among the highlights are: The progress made in the construction programme of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which passed the 50% completion milestone during the past year. A selection of the fascinating scientific results published during 2023 using observations from ESO facilities. Highlights of how ESO has contributed to and engaged with our communities and society, including a celebration of 60 years of ESO in our Host State Chile. News from the La Silla Paranal Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), including forthcoming instruments and upgrades. Updates on the technology development and R&D activities that keep ESO facilities at the forefront of astronomy. A “What is ESO?” introduction and “ESO’s year in numbers” at the ...

28 June 2024: Today, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has taken another step towards timely completion. At ESO’s Headquarters in Garching, Germany, and with remote participation from the UK, the organisation signed a contract with Glyndwr Innovations Limited (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wrexham University) in Wales, UK, for the production of the ELT’s M5 commissioning mirror. In case of delays in producing M5, this commissioning mirror will be used as the fifth mirror of the ELT’s innovative five-mirror design when the telescope sees first light. The M5 mirror is a crucial part of the ELT’s adaptive-optics system design: it will adjust its position up to 10 times per second without bending to allow the telescope to obtain the sharpest possible images. Like the rest of the ELT, M5 is pushing technology to its limits: at 2.7 by 2.2 metres, it is the largest tip-tilt mirror ever produced. It is made from silicon carbide, ...

5 June 2024: Today, ESO has signed an agreement with an international consortium of institutions for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. The ANDES instrument will be installed on ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). It will be used to search for signs of life in exoplanets and look for the very first stars, as well as to test variations of the fundamental constants of physics and measure the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion. The agreement was signed by ESO’s Director General, Xavier Barcons, and by Roberto Ragazzoni, the President of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the institution leading the ANDES consortium. Also attending the signing ceremony were Sergio Maffettone, Consul General of Italy in Munich, and INAF’s Alessandro Marconi, ANDES Principal Investigator, in addition to other representatives from ESO, INAF, the ANDES consortium and the Consulate of Italy in Munich. The signing took place at the ...

21 May 2024: Update The ESO and ALMA Science Archives are back online. Starting on Friday 17 May, several of ESO’s network and communication services were shut down to allow for an important software upgrade to be deployed. The upgrade is being done in response to a cyber security incident. In addition to the shutdown, mitigating this threat included limiting communications regarding the incident to avoid compromising ESO’s cyber security response plan. As of Tuesday 21 May, email services have been restored and the ESO website is back online. Other services, such as the ESO and ALMA Science Archives, are expected to be restored in the coming days. ESO’s IT team is working together with a cyber security consultant on detecting and clearing malicious software from all ESO’s machines, as well as on investigating the attack and its consequences. Should any of our stakeholders be found to be affected, they will be informed ...

15 May 2024: M5, the fifth mirror on the light path of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), has reached an important milestone: its blank, the shaped piece of material that is later polished to become the mirror, has just been finalised. The ELT will be equipped with five mirrors in total, and M5 is the smallest of them — but building its blank was no small feat. The French company Mersen Boostec manufactured this remarkable piece in their facilities near Tarbes, in France’s southwest. M5 is a flat, elliptical mirror measuring 2.7 by 2.2 metres, constructed from six segments brazed together. It might not seem much in comparison to the ELT’s enormous 39-metre primary mirror, but in reality, it is the largest tip-tilt mirror in the world. Together with M4, M5 is a crucial component of the ELT’s adaptive optics system: their unique synergy will allow the ELT to take extremely sharp images, ...

14 May 2024: The Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph, or METIS, has passed its Final Design Review, with ESO now giving the go-ahead on the manufacturing of all instrument components. METIS is a sophisticated multi-tool instrument that will operate on ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). It is the first of the ELT instruments to formally pass its Final Design Review, marking an important step for the METIS consortium, the ELT project, and the instrument-building community. METIS is a first-generation instrument on the world’s biggest eye on the sky, the ELT, meaning it will start operating when or shortly after the telescope itself starts observing the skies. It has a broad range of science goals, from probing the formation history of our Solar System to peering into the centre of galaxies, to studying their enigmatic supermassive black holes. The main scientific focus of METIS is on the study of planet-forming discs, and recently ...

30 April 2024: As part of a collaboration between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and ESO, the Observations of Airglow with Spectrometer and Imager Systems (OASIS) project has officially joined the ranks of ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Best known for hosting world-leading astronomical observatories, like ESO’s Very Large Telescope, Paranal also happens to be ideally suited for certain atmospheric observations. Operated by DLR and hosted by ESO, OASIS aims to show that monitoring “airglow” in our atmosphere has potential to provide early warnings for tsunamis. Tsunamis, giant waves caused mostly by earthquakes under the sea, are a destructive force of nature that can result in a significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. OASIS aims to show that it is possible to mitigate some of the impacts of these natural hazards by monitoring our atmosphere. Earthquakes generate sound waves that travel upwards through the atmosphere. These perturbations affect the so-called airglow or nightglow ...

14 March 2024: The construction of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in the Chilean Atacama Desert has reached a new milestone: a team at ESO’s Paranal Observatory have added a reflective, shiny layer, as well as special sensors, to the first segments of the telescope’s primary mirror. This “coating” means the segments are now essentially ready to start observing the skies, once installed at the heart of the world’s largest optical telescope later this decade. The 39-metre primary mirror of ESO’s ELT, known as M1, will be by far the largest mirror ever made for a telescope. Too large to be made from a single piece of glass, it will consist of 798 glass-ceramic hexagonal segments, each about five centimetres thick and 1.5 metres across. The mirror segments are manufactured in Europe in a multi-step, multinational process. The first 18 made their way across the ocean to Paranal earlier this year, and coating ...

28 February 2024: For the seventh year in a row, observations conducted at ESO’s observatories have led to more than 1000 scientific publications in a year. Recently, the ESO Library, Documentation, and Information Services Department has updated their detailed statistics on publications using ESO data, presenting each facility's contributions in 2023 [1]. The most significant contributions to these publications come from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the VLT Interferometer (VLTI) at Paranal Observatory, which yielded data included in over 600 studies. Highlights include the detection of distant gas clouds with leftovers from the first stars in the Universe and the most distant fast radio burst to date. For the last four years, the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) has been the most productive VLT instrument, producing data for over 200 papers in 2023 alone. Also located at Paranal Observatory, the Visible and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) and the VLT Survey Telescope ...

15 February 2024: Delegations representing 102 countries agreed last week to discuss the impact of large satellite constellations on astronomy at a meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS). After intense discussions, COPUOS’ Scientific and Technical Subcommittee has agreed to add an agenda item for the next five years with the title: "Dark and Quiet Skies, astronomy and large constellations: addressing emerging issues and challenges". As the UN’s top body for space-related matters, the committee deals with all topics related to international cooperation and the exploration of space and planetary bodies, including the deployment of satellites, space debris mitigation, long-term sustainability of space and the use of orbital slots. The proposal championed by ESO’s partner and host state Chile and ESO’s member state Spain — both countries hosting significant international astronomy infrastructure — was informed by the astronomy community and received widespread support from many ...

29 January 2024: Astronomers have, for the first time, made a direct measurement of the mass of a distant black hole, one so far away that light from its surroundings took 11 billion years to reach us. The team, led by Taro Shimizu at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, found the black hole, called J0920, to have a mass of about 320 million times that of the Sun. This achievement, described in a paper published today in Nature, has been made possible thanks to GRAVITY+, a series of ongoing upgrades to ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and its GRAVITY instrument. To directly measure the mass of a black hole, astronomers use telescopes to track the movement of gas and stars around it. The faster these move, the more mass is encased within the material’s orbit. This technique has been used to measure the mass of nearby black holes, ...

16 January 2024: After a 10 000 km journey across the world, the first mirror segments of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) have safely arrived in their next home, the ELT Technical Facility at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert. A total of 18 segments (out of 798) of the telescope’s main mirror (M1) successfully made the trip from Europe to South America, first arriving in Chile at the Antofagasta Terminal International (ATI) port last week. Once complete, the ELT’s M1 will be over 39 metres across, making it the world’s largest eye on the sky. Such scale means that the mirror can’t be cast in one piece, thus, 798 hexagonal segments will work together to form M1. An additional 133 will be produced to facilitate the segments’ recoating. Embarking on a remarkable voyage that began near Poitiers, France, where the ELT segments were finished, they then traveled by road to ...

7 December 2023: Tom Ray, Senior Professor and Director of Cosmic Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland, has been elected as the next president of ESO’s main governing body, the Council. He currently represents Ireland on the ESO Council and is the first Irish national to be elected ESO Council president. “I look forward to continuing my work with the ESO Council, and am honoured to be elected as the next president,” Ray says. “ESO continues to be a leader in ground-based astronomy, and the next few years will bring exciting developments. The Extremely Large Telescope, the world’s biggest eye on the sky, is over halfway completed, while the Very Large Telescope’s new instruments and infrastructure upgrades will ensure it continues to play a key role in exploring the Universe. And ALMA, which is celebrating 10 years of discoveries this year, will be able to produce much more detailed observations ...

29 November 2023: In a significant step in the direction of Open Science, ESO has formally joined the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Association as a Member. The Association is the legal entity governing the EOSC. The EOSC is an European Commission initiative to "enable researchers to find, create, share and reuse all forms of digital knowledge – such as publications, data and software – leading to new insights and innovations, higher research productivity and improved reproducibility in science”, in the words of former Commissioner of Innovation, Research, Culture, Education & Youth Mariya Gabriel. ESO has long supported it, by endorsing the EOSC Declaration in 2017 and with its continuing participation in ESCAPE, a project — which stemmed from the EOSC — that brings together the astronomy, astroparticle and particle physics communities in Europe in support of Open Science. By joining the EOSC Association, ESO will now be involved in its governance, as ...

28 November 2023: Today, in a celebration at Cerro Murphy in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CAMK), along with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other entities, inaugurated the renewed Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory. Hosted within ESO’s Paranal Observatory, the Observatory has undergone a major rebuild since 2020 and is ready to begin scientific observations again, marking a new chapter in its history. The Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory inauguration celebrates the beginning of scientific operations for three new optical telescopes, which will join existing facilities to explore how fast the Universe is expanding. The Observatory is dedicated to the Araucaria Project, a collaboration between astronomers from Chile, the USA and Europe, focused on improving the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale, a combination of methods by which astronomers measure the distance of objects throughout the Universe. The data gathered at the ...