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Venus over the BlackGEM telescopes (annotated)

In this Picture of the Week, Venus is shining brightly over ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The picture was taken just before dawn, towards the East, and also features the diffuse zodiacal light –– sunlight scattered by dust particles in the Solar System.

The three domes to the left of the road are the BlackGEM telescopes, built by Radboud University, the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), and KU Leuven. BlackGEM will search for the afterglow of some of the most dramatic events in the Universe, such as the collision of black holes and neutron stars. The ripples in space and time generated by these violent events can be detected by the LIGO and Virgo observatories. Thanks to their large field of view, the BlackGEM telescopes can locate the source of visible light from the afterglow of these events, and thereby pinpoint where the collision took place. This allows astronomers to study in greater detail what happens when black holes and neutron stars merge.