Announcements

14 March 2011: Deutsche Version unten On 14 April 2011, ESO will participate in Germany’s nationwide Girls’ Day activities, in which technical enterprises, universities and research organisations arrange open days for girls, to give female school students an insight into science and technology professions and to encourage more of them to choose such careers in the future. The ESO Girls’ Day, An Introduction to the Work of the European Southern Observatory, presents a series of talks in German and question-and-answer sessions with ESO staff and students. The topics covered include astronomy and engineering, administration and human resources. To complete this introduction to the world’s most productive astronomical observatory, there will be a live video-link to Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The Girls’ Day visitors will be able to talk with an ESO astronomer working 11 000 km away on this 2600-metre mountaintop in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Places are limited for ...

26 January 2011: The ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) has made its first observations that combine super-sharp imaging with measurements of motion. New pioneering data from the VLTI/AMBER instrument not only show extremely fine details of the gas and dust disc surrounding the brilliant supergiant star HD 62623, but also, by using spectroscopy, reveal the motions of the material in the disc for the first time. The origin of this disc has been a mystery, as such a bright star, which is near to the end of its life, is expected to blow away the material surrounding it, and not to be surrounded by a dusty disc similar to those around very young stars. A team of astronomers led by Florentin Millour (Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Nice) has now found that the material is orbiting the star — just as the planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun. Surprisingly they ...

8 December 2010: Click here for a special seasonal greeting from everyone at the European Southern Observatory! This year has heralded many new discoveries, facilitated by the ESO telescopes, including the thought-provoking find of a distant planetary system that resembles the Solar System. Using the HARPS spectrograph attached to ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile, astronomers detected up to seven planets in orbit around a Sun-like star (eso1035). And an unusual interloper — an exoplanet that entered the Milky Way from another galaxy — was found by a European team of astronomers using the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla (eso1045). In 2010 astronomers went far beyond just discovering such distant worlds. Amongst many new findings, astronomers used ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert, Chile, to detect the first spectrum of an exoplanet (eso1002) directly and to analyse, for the first time, the atmosphere of ...

7 December 2010: National Geographic has acquired the rights for Das Auge 3D (The Eye 3D), the first three-dimensional documentary produced in Germany [1]. The film will be broadcast on SKY 3D on 9 December at 20:15 (local time) in 3D television and again during the same evening at 21:10 (local time) on the German National Geographic Channel in 2D, bringing the story of the most powerful visible-light telescope in the world, ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), directly into people’s homes. The Eye 3D — Life and Research at Cerro Paranal stars ESOcast host Dr J, aka Joe Liske, who takes viewers on an exciting tour, introducing the magnificent telescope itself and the advanced techniques in use at Paranal, as well as taking a look at the daily life of astronomers, engineers, physicists and technicians working at the ESO sites. The documentary has recently won several awards, including the Gold Award in the ...

2 December 2010: Forget about painstakingly printing out and filling in order forms, you can now buy our entire range of fantastic ESO products with the click of a button [1]. The non-profit online ESOshop [2] offers a quick, easy and secure way to purchase merchandise — everything from books and posters about ESO’s telescopes and observational targets, to caps and lapel pins branded with the organisation’s official logo. With the holidays just around the corner, the ESOshop is the perfect place to browse for gifts for all astronomy enthusiasts. To visit the store, go to: http://www.eso.org/public/shop/ Educators and bona fide members of the press can order products for free from this website: http://www.eso.org/public/shop/freeorder/ One copy of each of ESO’s brochures, reports and educational materials (excluding posters, books and DVDs) can also be picked up in person for free at ESO’s Headquarters in Garching, Germany. Notes [1] Payment must be made by credit ...

2 December 2010: The Universe contains a dark secret: most of the matter, whose presence is revealed by its gravitational effect, does not emit or absorb any light. Today, we have good reasons to assume this “dark matter” is made of a new type of elementary particle that interacts only very weakly with the light and with ordinary matter. For the past 25 years, we have explored different strategies to bring light into this darkness, and to elucidate the physical nature of dark matter. During the next Café & Kosmos, Dr. Georg Raffelt (Max-Planck Institute for Physics) will explain the justifications for the existence of dark matter, mention candidates from particle physics, and discuss possible strategies to search experimentally for dark matter. The Café & Kosmos series of discussions is organised jointly by ESO, the Excellence Cluster Universe and the Max-Planck Institutes for Physics, Astrophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics. The discussions take place on ...

23 November 2010: An international team of astronomers has used ESO telescopes and other facilities to discover and study a unique and exotic star system comprised of a very cool, methane-rich (or T-) dwarf star and a “dead” white dwarf star in orbit around each other. The system is a “Rosetta Stone” for T-dwarf stars, giving scientists a way of finding the mass and age of this old methane dwarf. The team, led by Dr Avril Day-Jones of the Universidad de Chile and composed of astronomers from the University of Hertfordshire (UK), and the University of Montreal (Canada), is publishing its results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The system is the first of its type to be found. Methane is a fragile molecule destroyed at warmer temperatures, so is only seen in very cool stars and giant planets like Jupiter. Neither giant planets nor T-dwarf stars are massive ...

4 November 2010: Light coming from the four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) based in Paranal, Chile, has been successfully combined for the first time using a new visiting instrument called PIONIER [1]. This is an important step towards unleashing the full potential of the VLTI to use multiple telescopes together to reveal fine detail in distant objects. A joint team from Grenoble LAOG [2] and ESO achieved this very challenging feat of engineering only five days after unpacking the equipment on the mountain. The VLTI engineers had to control the distance traversed by the light from the widely separated telescopes with an accuracy of about one hundredth of the thickness of a strand of human hair. Once the light reached PIONIER, it was then channelled into the heart of the instrument: a remarkable optical circuit [3], smaller than a credit card, that finally brought ...

28 October 2010: On Thursday 4 November 2010, ESO’s powerful telescopes, which are located in a remote and barren desert landscape in Chile, will become more accessible than ever to astronomers in Europe, thanks to a new high-speed data link. Members of the press are invited to attend the launch of the new communications data link and to view a demonstration of the technology from the project site in the middle of the Atacama Desert. The high-speed data link is part of the Enabling Virtual Access to Latin American Southern Observatories (EVALSO) project. Previously, data from instruments at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) were sent back via a microwave link to a base station near the Chilean city of Antofagasta and from there to Santiago. This link supports a data transfer rate of only 16Mbit/s, but, since ESO’s VISTA telescope saw first light in December 2009, the Paranal Observatory now produces over 100 ...

28 October 2010: The SRZero supercar, one of the most advanced electric vehicles ever created, sped to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope on 27 October as part of its ambitious trek down the Americas. This was a remarkable meeting of two technological masterpieces that are both examples of the finest inventions that have taken humanity to the limits of the possible, both on this planet and beyond. Astronomers, journalists, engineers and other lucky guests enjoyed the extraordinary spectacle of this eco-friendly supercar revving around the four Unit Telescopes, bathed in glorious sunset light before the observatory domes opened to begin the night’s observations. The SRZero electric supercar is a project carried out by students from the Racing Green Endurance (RGE) team from Imperial College London’s Energy Futures Lab, sponsored by KPMG and supported in Chile by the British Embassy. The 400-bhp twin-motor vehicle is touring the full 26 000 km length ...

26 October 2010: A mobile science exhibition called the Science Train will travel around the Antofagasta Region of Chile from 25 October to 6 November 2010, bringing the wonders of science to the local residents. Each of the six carriages of the Science Train is dedicated to a different topic: The Universe, The Earth is Alive, The Origins of Life, Mankind and Desert, Technological Development and The Future of Communications. The carriages promise to give a fascinating overview of each scientific topic in a rather unconventional environment for an exhibition. The Mankind and Desert carriage will introduce a cultural element to this travelling exhibition, as it explores the importance of the desert for the ancient cultures that settled in the Atacama. The train will make its first scheduled stop in Antofagasta on Monday, 25 October, before departing for stations in Mejillones, Baquedano, Sierra Gorda, Calama and Ollagüe. The Science Train is a project ...

22 October 2010: An extraordinary event is set to take place on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 (note the change of date), when one of the most advanced electric vehicles ever made, the SRZero supercar, will stop by at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, Chile. The press are invited to attend this remarkable meeting of two technological masterpieces that are both examples of the finest inventions that have taken humanity to the limits of the possible, both on this planet and beyond. The event for journalists will begin with a 16:00 check-in at Paranal Observatory, followed by extensive photo and video opportunities, tours of the telescopes, interviews with leading engineers and astronomers, and a stunning sunset around 20:00. Interested journalists are asked to contact Gonzalo Argandona before the event at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Santiago Office (Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura; tel: +56 2 463 3258); or send ...

30 September 2010: Several Postdoctoral Fellowships will soon be awarded at ESO Germany and Chile. These Fellowships will offer young and bright scientists opportunities and facilities to enhance their science research projects at the most productive observatory in the world. ESO is presently operating the VLT and La Silla Telescopes and APEX, is the European partner in the ALMA project, and is designing the E-ELT, the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world. The ESO Fellowship Programme is a competitive one: don’t miss the deadline on 15 October!

9 September 2010: Using data from observations by two amateur astronomers (Anthony Wesley from Australia and Christopher Go from the Philippines), as well as data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope and several other ground-based telescopes, scientists have found that the object seen entering the atmosphere of Jupiter on 3 June 2010 was a meteoroid roughly 8–13 m in diameter. The science paper is available on this link. This was the second of three recently observed Jupiter impacts discovered by amateurs, with the latest being reported on 20 August 2010 by the Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa and confirmed by other Japanese amateurs. The video of that event can be watched at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIkr86xKcwQ ESO’s VLT has also been used to study the aftermath of the first and very spectacular unexpected Jupiter impact that was also first spotted by Anthony Wesley on 19 July 2009. By using the VISIR instrument Leigh Fletcher and his collaborators ...

9 September 2010: New research carried out using ESO telescopes has, for the first time, allowed astronomers to reconstruct a detailed picture of the inner disc of matter around a young star. Stéphanie Renard of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Grenoble and colleagues used the ESO VLT Interferometer to probe the secrets of the star HD 163296. Young stars are surrounded by discs of dust and gas and scientists believe that it is in these discs that planets are born. Dusty grains in the disc stick to each other to make larger lumps that in turn also aggregate together. This growth is expected to continue until rocky bodies about the size of the Earth are formed. “The power of the VLT Interferometer to probe very fine details now allows us to see the inner region very close to the star where there is not expected to be any dust. The new images reveal the ...

7 September 2010: An ambitious project is now in progress at ESO to convert one of the four VLT Unit Telescopes into a fully adaptive telescope. The telescope’s 1.1-metre diameter secondary mirror is to be replaced by an extraordinary deformable mirror system that can be used with laser guide stars to correct for the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere and allow much sharper images to be achieved for all the telescope’s instruments. A major milestone in this quest has just been successfully passed with the completion and testing of an ultra-lightweight “reference optic”. The deformable secondary mirror has been contracted out by ESO to Microgate and ADS (Italy). Another supplier in the south of France, SESO, has just successfully delivered the reference optic, which is the heart of the secondary mirror system. This reference optic is an intricate, very rigid, but also exceptionally light structure made from Zerodur, a glass–ceramic made by ...

1 September 2010: ESO will have a significant presence at the Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting (JENAM) in Lisbon, Portugal, during the week of 6–10 September 2010. JENAM is organised jointly each year by the European Astronomical Society (EAS) and one of the European national astronomical societies. This year’s JENAM will be the 18th Annual Meeting of EAS and the 20th Annual Portuguese Meeting of Astronomy and Astrophysics. On Monday 6 September EAS will inaugurate a new award to honour astronomers of outstanding scientific distinction, the Lodewijk Woltjer Lecture. The award is named after Lodewijk Woltjer, one of Europe’s outstanding astronomers of the second half of the twentieth century, and ESO Director General from 1975 till 1988. Under his leadership ESO established itself as one of the world’s leading astronomical institutes, and took the decision to build the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory. The inaugural lecture ...

26 August 2010: Asteroids are often thought of simply as big rocks orbiting the Sun, but they can have quite exciting lives. Small irregularly-shaped asteroids can be “spun up” to fast rotation rates by sunlight falling on them — much as the asymmetric profile of a propeller blade helps it to spin up in the wind. New results show that when asteroids spin fast enough, they can split into two pieces which then begin orbiting each other. Scientists call this process “rotational fission”. A new study released this week, led by Petr Pravec of the Astronomical Institute in Czechia and involving many other institutions around the world, shows that many of these binary asteroids do not remain bound to each other but escape, forming two asteroids in very similar, but independent, orbits about the Sun where previously there was just one. Many such asteroid pairs have been discovered in recent years and the ...

12 August 2010: ESO is announcing today that important sections of its website have been translated into Icelandic, Polish and Turkish, allowing even more people to read about the latest scientific advances in their native language. ESO projects include the most advanced observing facility in the world, the Very Large Telescope, as well as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and the planned European Extremely Large Telescope. Press releases and other important information are translated by the ESO Science Outreach Network (ESON), a group of individuals in several countries — including all the ESO member states as well other interested countries, including Iceland, Poland and Turkey — who serve as local contacts for the media and the general public in connection with ESO developments. ESON members are also useful contacts between the media and scientists in their respective regions, and as such are valuable ambassadors. "ESO is keen on sharing its results with as ...

4 August 2010: A report on the latest progress in the design of the European Southern Observatory’s European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), to be built on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert, was one of the highlights of the Second International Seminar on Light Pollution held on 2–4 August at the Atacama Desert Museum in Antofagasta, Chile. The European Southern Observatory (ESO), in collaboration with the Chilean National Commission for Environment, Chilean universities and the Office for the Protection of the Quality of the Skies in the North of Chile, organised this event, supported by the Ruinas de Huanchaca Foundation, Antofagasta Municipality and the Chilean Astronomy Society, to promote the protection of dark skies as a scientific heritage. Experts from Europe, Brazil, Argentina and the USA discussed the benefits of improving the efficiency of urban lightning to reduce light pollution, and the resulting positive impact on the environment, energy consumption, economy and ...