Announcements

15 September 2017: At a ceremony on 14 September 2017 at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, UK, the winners of this year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition were announced. All of the winning photographs will be available for viewing in a free public gallery at the Observatory’s Astronomy Centre from 16 September 2017. ESO plays a part by contributing a judge, Oana Sandu, from its education and Public Outreach Department. This year’s overall winner, who receives a cash prize of £10,000, was Artem Mironov of Russia. His spectacular image of the colourful gas and dust in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, a nebula located 400 light years from Earth, also won the Stars and Nebulae category. The prizewinners in all of the categories are: Stars and Nebulae — Photos of stars, star clusters, supernova remnants, and nebulae Artem Mironov (Russia) with The Rho Ophiuchi Clouds (Winner and Overall Winner) András Papp (Hungary) ...

24 August 2017: In ESOcast 124 ESO’s outgoing Director General, Tim de Zeeuw, gives us his thoughts and reflections on a decade at ESO. Over the last ten years ESO has consolidated its position as the world’s foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation. In this period of growth the organisation has seen the accession of two new member states and also the construction of new telescopes, instruments and facilities, leading to astonishing new discoveries. As Director General, Tim de Zeeuw has played an extremely important role in the evolution of ESO, an evolution which continues to take the organisation into new territory. Perhaps most significant is that under his leadership, the ESO Council has agreed to proceed with the construction of the Extremely Large Telescope, which is set to usher in a new era of astronomy. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts on iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many ...

9 August 2017: A new analysis of data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope and other telescopes suggests that the orbits of stars around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way may show the subtle effects predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. There are hints that the orbit of the star S2 is deviating slightly from the path calculated using classical physics. This tantalising result is a prelude to much more precise measurements and tests of relativity that will be made using the GRAVITY instrument as star S2 passes very close to the black hole in 2018. At the centre of the Milky Way, 26 000 light-years from Earth, lies the closest supermassive black hole, which has a mass four million times that of the Sun. This monster is surrounded by a small group of stars orbiting at high speed in the black hole’s very strong gravitational field. It ...

4 August 2017: The Chilean Minister of Energy, Andrés Rebolledo, recently attended a ceremony marking the connection of ESO’s Paranal and Armazones sites, the latter being where the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be located, to the Chilean national electricity grid. The new electricity supply will reduce costs and reduce the observatory’s carbon footprint. Minister Rebolledo remarked on the importance of this development as an example of the capability of Chile’s electricity network and its ability to provide a safe, high-quality supply of energy for cutting-edge astronomical research. Roberto Tamai, the ELT Programme Manager, who was the Project Manager for this ESO upgrade, thanked the Chilean government and institutions for helping to create the energy infrastructure that will underpin progress on the ELT site. With its 39-metre main mirror the construction of the ELT is a demanding technological and engineering challenge. Tamai stressed that the electricity supply is a key part of the ...

14 July 2017: A selection from ESO’s archive of more than 11 000 photos, regular Pictures of the Week and stunning Photo Releases will now be released on Instagram, as ESO joins the popular social media channel for sharing images. We invite you to follow ESO @esoastronomy to revel in spectacular vistas of the Universe, taken with some of the most powerful telescopes in the world, to learn about the astounding discoveries that astronomers make, and to view life at ESO’s observatories. To discover ESO amidst the undergrowth of social media channels, we invite you to explore our social media overview page, where we feature all of the places where you can connect with ESO and its observatories. This includes dozens of fan pages set up by people who are just as keen to share information about ESO as we are. Several hashtags may be of interest to you: #ESOjobs, #ELTprogress, #ESOcast, #ESOcastLight, ...

29 June 2017: It took some of the brightest minds in science and technology to build ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, one of the largest and most sophisticated telescope facilities in the world. Now Dutch astronomer Frans Snik and a team of dedicated helpers have created a unique LEGO® model of the entire Paranal platform, complete with replicas of the four 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes (UT), the four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes and other astonishingly minute details [1]. This mind-boggling one-of-a-kind model has been handed over to ESO and is on display at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany. When the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre opens at the ESO Headquarters in spring 2018, the model will be displayed there. The model of the Paranal platform, at a scale of approximately 1:150, comprises the VLT telescopes and their dome structures, and all of the instruments used on the real VLT are also present. ...

19 June 2017: ESO has signed a contract with the German company Physik Instrumente GmbH & Co. KG, based in Karlsruhe, to construct the position actuators (PACTs) that will adjust the positions of the 798 hexagonal segments of the primary mirror of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). The segments that make up the ELT’s enormous 39-metre main mirror will be connected to the main telescope structure via a support system (ann15003), of which the PACTs are fundamental components. Each segment, some 1.4 metres across and weighing 250 kg will be mounted on three PACTs — meaning 2394 in total. The PACTs will support the segment and actively control its position in three directions, known as piston, tip and tilt. The control system of the ELT primary mirror will initiate tiny adjustments to the PACTs to maintain the mirror’s overall shape, correcting for deformations which may be caused by changes in telescope elevation, temperature ...

19 June 2017: The team behind the Pale Red Dot campaign, who last year discovered a planet around the closest star to our Sun (eso1629), are resuming their search for Earth-like planets and launching another initiative today. The Red Dots campaign will follow the astronomers as they use ESO’s exoplanet-hunter to look for planets around some of our nearest stellar neighbours: Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Star and Ross 154. ESO is joining this Open Notebook Science experiment — real science presented in real time — that will give the public and the scientific community access to observational data from Proxima Centauri as the campaign unfolds. The scientific team [1] led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé from Queen Mary University of London will acquire and analyse data from ESO’s High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and other instruments across the globe [2] over approximately 90 nights. Photometric observations began on 15 June and spectrographic observations start ...

13 June 2017: The ESO Annual Report 2016 is now available. It presents an overview of ESO’s many activities throughout the year. The contents include: Research highlights from ESO facilities, with the latest results across many fields of astronomy stretching from high-redshift galaxies to the discovery of an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star. A summary of operations at ESO’s observatories in Chile. The latest news from the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) projects. News about ESO staff and buildings — including the ALMA Residencia and the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre. This product is available for sale in the ESOshop.

12 June 2017: Up to now ESO’s giant telescope project has been referred to as the European Extremely Large Telescope or E-ELT, but this name, which was always intended to be interim and not final, is becoming less appropriate. To address this as the project moves rapidly forward into the construction phase, the organisation has decided on a shorter name. Instead of the European Extremely Large Telescope, the world’s biggest eye on the sky will now be known simply as the Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT. The new name, as well as being shorter and easier to say, reflects the growing number of ESO’s international partners, both at national level and as regards the commercial companies involved in the project, and also the fact that the telescope is located in Chile. Whilst older material may continue to refer to the telescope by its original name, ESO will be using the new name from ...

22 May 2017: ESO has awarded a multi-million euro contract to the international company Teledyne e2v to design and produce a set of Large Visible Sensor Modules for use on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Scheduled to see first light in 2024, the ELT is at the forefront of telescope technology. In order for the telescope to capture the Universe in exquisite detail, the ELT will use highly sophisticated adaptive optics systems which will enable it to adjust for changes in the atmosphere above it. These systems will require sensors of the highest quality. Each sensor, with a size of 800 x 800 pixels, will employ Teledyne e2v’s renowned CMOS technology. Their extreme sensitivity and fast response will permit the ELT’s adaptive optics systems to make tiny adjustments around 700 times a second to compensate for variations in Earth’s atmosphere. This will ensure that the resulting astronomical images — of exoplanets, distant galaxies ...

9 May 2017: The Australian Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Senator the Hon Arthur Sinodinos, has announced his Government’s intention to open negotiations with ESO on a strategic partnership that would see Australia participate in all activities related to the La Silla Paranal Observatory. This announcement follows many years of informal discussions between Australia and ESO about potential collaborations. While the partnership arrangement is subject to the approval of ESO Council, it raises the possibility of many exciting opportunities for both Australia and ESO. The Australian government’s announcement was given impetus by the 2015 release of the Australian Academy of Science’s Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy, 2016–2025. This notes the need for long-term partnerships with eight-metre-class optical/infrared telescopes in order for Australia to continue to have the scientific expertise and technical capacity to conduct world-leading science with the next generation of large telescopes and to maintain the nation’s leadership in optical-infrared instrumentation. ...

6 April 2017: ESO is delighted to announce that this year’s Tycho Brahe Prize has been awarded to Bernard Delabre, one of ESO’s optical engineers. The prize is awarded “in recognition of the development or exploitation of European instruments or major discoveries based largely on such instruments”. Bernard Delabre has been involved in the design of the optics of nearly all the instruments built by ESO over the past 35 years, including HARPS at La Silla, and UVES, MUSE, ERIS, HAWK-I, and CRIRES at the Very Large Telescope. He has been the chief optical designer of a number of telescopes including the Extremely Large Telescope, for which he invented the beautiful five-mirror solution. Delabre was awarded this prestigious prize in recognition of his leading role in the optical design of astronomical telescopes, cameras and spectrographs over the past 40 years. Throughout his career at ESO, he has exemplified the tradition of working at ...

5 April 2017: Media representatives are invited to attend the first stone ceremony of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) on Friday 26 May 2017 on Cerro Armazones, a 3046-metre peak in northern Chile about 20 kilometres from ESO’s Paranal Observatory. The ceremony will begin at 13:30 local time and is expected to finish around 15:30, and will also mark the connection of the observatory to the power grid. The first stone will be laid by the President of the Republic of Chile, Her Excellency Michelle Bachelet Jeria. Media will have the opportunity not only to visit the spectacular site, but also to arrange interviews with senior figures both from the Chilean authorities and industrial contractors and with the scientists and engineers involved in building the giant telescope. The ELT is a revolutionary new ground-based telescope that will have a 39-metre main mirror — making it the largest optical-near-infrared telescope in the world. It ...

15 February 2017: ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), scheduled to see first light in 2024, is at the cutting edge of telescope technology. Its optical system will consist of no fewer than five separate mirrors, each of them a significant engineering challenge. ESO has now awarded the contract to polish the third mirror in the light path, known as M3, to the French company Reosc [1], a subsidiary of Safran Electronics & Defense. They will receive the blank from SCHOTT, design the mirror and its mounting interfaces, polish the surface, and complete all necessary optical tests before delivery [2]. Reosc were also awarded the contracts to design, polish and test the telescope’s secondary mirror in July 2016, and to manufacture the deformable shell mirrors that will comprise the ELT’s fourth mirror (M4). M3 will be a giant 3.8-metre concave mirror — as big as the primary mirror of many of today’s world-class telescopes. ...

22 December 2016: Interest in our neighbouring Alpha Centauri star system has been particularly high since the recent discovery of an Earth-mass planet, known as Proxima b, orbiting the system’s third star — and the closest star to the Sun — Proxima Centauri. While the system’s larger stellar pair, Alpha Centauri A and B, appear to have a proper motion on the sky that is very similar to that of the smaller, fainter Proxima Centauri, it has not been possible to demonstrate that the three stars do actually form a single, gravitationally bound, triple system. Now three astronomers, Pierre Kervella, Frédéric Thévenin and Christophe Lovis, have concluded that the three stars do indeed form a bound system. In the century since it was discovered, Proxima Centauri’s faintness has made it extremely difficult to reliably measure its radial velocity — the speed at which it moves towards and away from Earth. But now ESO’s ...

29 November 2016: Soaring through the cloudless Chilean sky might seem like something from a dream, but this ESOcast allows you to do just that. Incredible aerial photography of ESO’s facilities in Chile provides a new perspective on the world’s most productive astronomical observatories, showcasing their engineering ingenuity and spectacular surroundings from a whole new angle. The journey takes in several of ESO’s observatory sites, at La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor, and also includes Cerro Armazones — the site for the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope. The thin air at the extreme altitude of these observatories allows for stunning, crystal-clear vistas of the Atacama Desert for many miles around. Of course, the reason these telescopes are there at all is because of the dazzling show the Chilean sky provides almost every night. Timelapses of the cosmos show some of the most incredible phenomena the Universe has to offer dancing around above. You can ...

28 October 2016: A major milestone has been reached in the project to transform Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun) of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) into a fully adaptive telescope, with the installation of a deformable secondary mirror on the telescope. Adaptive Optics systems compensate for the blurring effect of the Earth’s atmosphere that degrades the sharpness of images that can be obtained with a telescope — even a very large and sophisticated one like the VLT. The installation of the new Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) as an integral part of UT4 will enable the telescope to obtain even sharper images. The deformable secondary mirror consists of a 1.96 mm-thick flexible mirror sitting on a mount that holds 1170 actuators which change the shape of the mirror to correct for the effect of turbulence in the atmosphere. At just over one metre in diameter, this is the largest adaptive optics mirror ever produced. The ...

20 October 2016: A very rare gravitational lensing event, set to occur in 2028, has been predicted by a team of French astronomers led by Pierre Kervella of the CNRS/Universidad de Chile. It will provide an ideal opportunity to look for evidence of a planet around a nearby star. Using both new and archive data obtained with a range of ESO telescopes [1], the team has predicted the trajectories of the fast-moving stellar duo known as the Alpha Centauri A and B, with negligible error. That has allowed them to predict every close alignment until 2050 between the Alpha Centauri pair and the stars which lie close to them on the sky — but which are in fact a great deal further away in space [2]. Whilst it is satisfying to see into the future with such impressive accuracy, that is not the real prize in these results; they provide a unique opportunity ...

20 October 2016: New high-definition cameras have been installed at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). They will provide improved 24/7 interactive views of these two flagship observatories in Chile and will complement ESO’s suite of existing live webcam views.. The new cameras provide a live 360-degree view of the activities at the observatories throughout the year and can be used interactively to explore the site in all directions in exquisite detail. In addition, there are several high-resolution “points of interest”, which include a dedicated feed of the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile — the site of the new European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) — to document the construction of the world’s largest optical telescope, scheduled for completion in 2024. Also shown are the operations of the smaller Auxiliary Telescopes at Paranal, and, on very clear days, the Llullaillaco volcano can be seen, at a distance ...