Meddelelser

22. august 2017: ESPRESSO — the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations — har nu klaret ESO's test, som kaldes Preliminary Acceptance Europe (PAE). Det betyder, at instrumentet har bestået de indledende prøver, og nu bliver instrumentet pakket sammen og sendt til Chile, hvor det bliver installeret ved det kombinerede coudé-focus på Very Large Telescope (VLT). Det forventes, at ESPRESSO har 'first light' senere i 2017. ESPRESSO er en echelle spektrograf, og det er et af de instrumenter i astronomiens verden, som har været ventet med de største forventninger. Det bliver afløseren til ESO's planetjæger HARPS, som er i funktion på ESO 3,6 meter teleskopet på La Silla. Det nye instrument kommer til at overgå HARPS i præcision med mindst ti gange[1]. ESPRESSO er næste generation i jagten på exoplaneter, og instrumentet kommer til at måle små bitte ændringer i lyset fra stjernerne forårsaget af, at planeter kredser omkring dem. ...

10. august 2017: Back in October 2012, the near-Earth asteroid 2012 TC4 had a close encounter with Earth. It passed our planet at a distance only a quarter of that between the Earth and the Moon. In October 2017, this small asteroid, with a size of only about 15 to 30 metres, will return for another very close fly-by, making it the perfect object to test the asteroid detection and tracking network. As 2012 TC4 could not be observed for several years, its orbit was not very well known. In particular, astronomers could not yet predict just how close it will come to Earth during its next fly-by in 2017. So finding it again and observing it in detail are crucial to learning more about how close it will get to Earth and refining our understanding of the path it will take. Because the asteroid is so small and is still far away ...

9. august 2017: Stjernerne helt tæt inde ved det sorte hul i midten af Mælkevejen viser de forventede svage relativistiske effekter i deres baner, som er forudset af Einsteins generelle relativitetsteori. Det antyder en ny gennemgang af data fra ESOs Very Large Telescope og andre teleskoper. Banen for stjernen S2 ser ud til afvige en smule fra det, man får, hvis man kun beregner banen med klassisk fysik. Det spændene resultat lægger op til endnu mere præcise målinger, som bliver gjort med instrumentet GRAVITY, når S2 i 2018 passerer meget tæt forbi det enorme sorte hul. I centrum af Mælkevejen 26 000 lysår fra Jorden ligger et supertungt sort hul, som vejer fire millioner gange mere end Solen. Monsteret omgives af en lille gruppe stjerner, som med høje hastigheder kredser i det meget kraftige tyngdefelt tæt på det sorte hul. Det er det helt perfekte sted at teste gravitationsfysikken og særligt Einsteins Generelle ...

7. august 2017: This video takes a relaxed look at a tense process — cleaning and recoating the surface of one of the ESO Very Large Telescope’s 8.2-metre main mirrors. Every night the huge mirrors are exposed to the atmosphere whilst uncovered during observing sessions. They gradually accumulate dust and other pollutants that reduce their reflectivity, making them less effective at capturing faint light from the cosmos. So they are regularly removed from the telescope, taken down the mountain to the recoating facility, cleaned and finally recoated with a thin and highly reflective new aluminium layer. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts on iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other ESOcast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles to the ESOcast in multiple languages, or translate this video on YouTube.

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 ...

2. august 2017: Lyset er astronomiens livsnerve, og ved hjælp af teleskoper og måleinstrumenter kan astronomerne studere næsten alt ude i Verdensrummet. Desværre forstyrrer lufturo i atmosfæren det lys, som hentes ned i teleskoperne på jordoverfladen. Den udfordring har ESOs forskere taget op, og ved ESOs Very Large Telescope har de installeret den fantastiske nye Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF), som hjælper specialkameraet MUSE til at bryde nye rekorder. I ESOcast 119 fortæller vi, hvorfor adaptiv optik er nødvendig for ESOs forskere, hvordan AOF kan forbedre resultaterne fra instrumentet MUSE, og hvad der i fremtiden er planlagt omkring adaptiv optik ved ESOs Very Large Telescope. ESOcast videoerne kan man abonnere på via iTunes, man kan få fremtidige afsnit på YouTube eller følge os på Vimeo. Der er allerede mange andre ESOcast videoer frit tilgængelige. Vi har brug for hjælpere, som har lyst til at skrive undertekster til ESOcastserien på forskellige sprog og til at ...

1. august 2017: One of our most popular products, the ESO Calendar, is now available in its 2018 incarnation, and can be ordered from the ESO online shop. The calendar’s cover features a spectacular long-exposure image of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama desert. The striking yellow beam, cutting across the hundreds of star trails, is produced by laser light from the VLT Unit Telescope named Yepun. With this, the telescope can compensate for atmospheric distortion to produce stunningly sharp images. Inside, the calendar is packed with amazing images of the cosmos as well as photographs of ESO’s telescopes against the striking Chilean landscapes. The month of October, for example, sees an artist’s impression of the forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope that will be the world’s largest optical and infrared telescope, set to tackle the biggest scientific questions in cosmology. Other observatories — La Silla in April, and ALMA ...

18. juli 2017: The latest edition of ESO's quarterly journal, The Messenger, is now available online. Find out the latest news from ESO on topics ranging from new instruments to the latest science discoveries. Highlights of this edition include: A Long Expected Party — The First Stone Ceremony for the Extremely Large Telescope The Adaptive Optics Facility: Commissioning Progress and Results The Cherenkov Telescope Array: Exploring the Very-high-energy Sky from ESO’s Paranal Site Towards a Sharper Picture of R136 with SPHERE Extreme Adaptive Optics The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS): Science Highlights and Final Data Release Download The Messenger in PDF format or visit The Messenger website to subscribe and receive a free printed copy. This product is also available in the ESOshop.

14. juli 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, ...

10. juli 2017: Following a competitive selection process, the ALMA Board has appointed Sean Dougherty to lead the Observatory as the new ALMA Director for 5 years, starting in April 2018. Sean Dougherty is currently Director of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Canada’s national radio astronomy facility, which is run by NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. He has served as a member of the ALMA Board representing North America for 4 years and was the chair of the ALMA Budget Committee for the last 2 years. Sean received his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Calgary, Canada, in 1993, following a degree in Mathematics and Physics from University of Nottingham, England. He has over 20 years of science and engineering management experience in radio astrophysics, from management and representation of Canada’s contributions to international radio astronomy facilities and R&D projects, to leadership of major science and engineering activities at the Dominion Radio ...

7. juli 2017: In August 2015, ESO and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a cooperation agreement setting the terms and conditions for mutual cooperation and the exchange of scientific research information between the two organisations. The first project to be implemented under this cooperation agreement is the deployment of a Test-Bed Telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. Operating alongside a similar project in the northern hemisphere, the 56-cm Test-Bed Telescope (TBT) will act as a precursor to a full autonomous optical sensor network which will detect and track an extensive list of near-Earth objects, such as asteroids. The TBT will demonstrate the instrument’s hardware and software capabilities, such as automatic scheduling, remote real-time control, and autonomous data processing.

7. juli 2017: To astronomers, ESO’s state-of-the-art telescopes are not just about collecting pretty pictures, however alluring they may be; they are tools to collect data, through which remarkable discoveries are made. But there is simply not enough observing time available for everyone to observe to their heart’s content — so how is telescope time allocated? ESOcast 116 explores how astronomers request time to use an ESO telescope, and how ESO’s Observing Programmes Committee, embarking on its one-hundredth meeting, examines and judges these proposals in order to ensure that ESO is making the best use of its telescopes to advance our knowledge and understanding of the Universe. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts on iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other ESOcast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles to the ESOcast in multiple languages, or translate this video on YouTube.

6. juli 2017: One of the most challenging and exciting areas of astronomy today is the search for exoplanets — other worlds orbiting other stars. The exoplanet HIP 65426b has recently been discovered using the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Some 385 light-years from us, HIP 65426b is the first planet that SPHERE has found [1] — and it turns out to be a particularly interesting one. The planet is warm (between 1000 and 1400 degrees Celsius), and is between six and twelve times the mass of Jupiter. It seems to have a very dusty atmosphere filled with thick cloud, and it orbits a hot, young star that rotates surprisingly fast. Unusually, given its age, the star does not appear to be surrounded by a disc of debris, and the absence of a disc raises puzzling questions about how the planet formed in the first ...

4. juli 2017: As the construction of the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre here in Garching continues apace, ready for its opening in Spring 2018, ESO continues to make an unprecedented range of high-quality materials available for use in planetariums, produced by world-renowned astrophotographers, artists, technicians and musicians. The latest additions to our collection include: New 4k live fulldome webcams for ALMA and VLT, new deep-sky night-time cameras. These new webcams show many wonderful day- and night-time phenomena live from the observatories, such as zodiacal light, gegenschein, airglow, atmospheric absorption and diffraction. New free music tracks produced for our archive by our new music ambassadors. More ESO fulldome clips, including stunning timelapses of ESO’s observatories, an artist’s impression of the TRAPPIST-1 system, and renderings of violent events in the Universe such as a black hole devouring a star and merging stars creating a supernova. More ESA/Hubble fulldome clips. More beautiful image compositions ...

29. juni 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. juni 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. juni 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 ...

16. juni 2017: Capturing and recording the (often very faint) light from the heavens has always been an essential aspect of astronomy. The very first astronomical “detector” was, of course, the unaided human eye — astronomy has come a long way from that to reach today’s cutting-edge detectors mounted on modern telescopes. In this ESOcast, Dr. J delves into the history of the sensors that have been used to study the Universe over the centuries, from the first telescopes to photographic plates to the CCDs that ESO has helped develop over the past decades. You can subscribe to the ESOcasts on iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other ESOcast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles to the ESOcast in multiple languages or translate this video on YouTube.

15. juni 2017: The winner of the AstroCamp 2017 bursary offered by ESO has now been selected from almost 100 applications from about a dozen countries. ESO is delighted to announce that Eva Forrest from the United Kingdom is the winner of the ESO bursary. The standard of applications was extremely high, from a variety of enthusiastic future scientists and engineers keen to attend this year’s camp. The ESO bursary covers the full cost of the camp, providing Eva with financial assistance to participate in this potentially career-defining event. AstroCamp is an academic programme devoted to astronomy and physics, organised by the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) and the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences. The camp will take place from 6 to 20 August 2017 in northern Portugal, at the Centre for Environmental Education and Interpretation of the Corno de Bico Protected Landscape. The program is intended for ...

15. juni 2017: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in printed form. This European journal for science teachers offers up-to-date information on cutting-edge science, teaching materials and projects in science education, interviews with inspiring scientists and teachers, reviews of books and other resources, and many other useful resources for science teachers. It aims to promote science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists and everyone else involved in European science education. Some of the highlights of this issue include: an article looking at how structures in nature are inspiring the design of the buildings of the future; an interview with Nobel prizewinner Sir Paul Nurse; and an article looking at how the sensitivity needed to detect gravitational waves was achieved. Practical teaching activities for the classroom include: exploring how chemistry and physics are used to solve crimes; and an activity about the spread of ...