What's new in the ESO Web

This is a list of new entries to the ESO Web Site within the last two months, August 2005 and September 2005. Subscribers to What's New in the ESO Web Notifier get an automated message of recent changes in the ESO Web.

An archive of what's new entries is available.

01.9.2006: - ESO Call for Proposals for Period 79 has been released. The next deadline (for Period 79, 1 April 2007 - 30 September 2007) is: 29 September 2006 (12:00 noon, CEST).
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/observing/proposals/.
30.8.2006: - ESO 33/06 - Science Release: 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-33-06.html.
24.8.2006: - ESO 32/06 - Organisation Release: 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-32-06.html.
24.8.2006: - ESO 31/06 - Science Release: SINFONI Discovers Rapidly Forming, Large Proto-Disc Galaxies Three Billion Years After The Big Bang -- 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-31-06.html.
14.8.2006: - The Large Bolometer Camera for APEX (LABOCA), a 295-element bolometer array operating at 870ym, has successfully passed its pre-shipment review, and will be installed on the APEX 12m telescope on Chajnantor in September 2006. ESO now invites proposals for science verification from the ESO community. Pending successful on-sky commissioning, ESO also proposes to schedule its share of LABOCA observing time on the telescope in October and December 2006 as further Science Verification. All observations will be performed in service mode by the local APEX staff. All proposals should be sent to cdebreuc@eso.org by noon CEST on Monday 4 September 2006.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/projects/apex/SV_LABOCA.pdf.
10.8.2006: - ESO 30/06 - Science Release: A possible Stellar Solution to the Cosmological Lithium Problem -- 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-30-06.html.
04.8.2006: - ESO 29/06 - Science Release: Astronomers Discover Double Planetary Mass Object -- 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-29-06.html.
03.8.2006: - ESO 28/06 - Science Release: Brown Dwarf Survives Being Swallowed -- 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.
Take a look at: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-28-06.html.

For older news see our archive of whats new entries.

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Last update: Fri Sep 1 16:49:57 2006