Pressemeddelelser 2009

26. august 2009: I dag har ESO offentliggjort et nyt billede af Trifid-tågen, der viser, hvorfor den er en af favoritterne blandt astronomer, såvel amatører som professionelle. Denne store stjernefabrik har fået sit navn på grund af de mørke støvbånd, der tredeler dens glødende hjerte, og den er en sjælden kombination af tre tågetyper, der både afslører nydannede stjerners rasen og er udgangspunkt for fødslen af flere stjerner.

19. august 2009: Nye billeder offentliggjort i dag af ESO, dykker ned i hjertet på en kosmisk sky, kaldet RCW 38, der er fyldt med spirende stjerner og planetsystemer. Dens unge stjerner bombarderer spæde sole og planeter med kraftige vinde og blændende lys, godt hjulpet af kortlivede, tunge stjerner, der eksploderer som supernovaer. I nogle tilfælde, koger dette stormløb stoffet væk, der ellers med tiden kunne have dannet nye solsystemer. Forskere mener, at vores eget Solsystem er dannet i et sådant miljø.

5. august 2009: ESO har netop offentliggjort et fantastisk billede af en del af himlen i retning af stjernebilledet Carina (Kølen). Dette slående billede er et mylder af stjerner i alle farver og lysstyrker, hvoraf nogle ses på en baggrund af skyer af støv og gas. Den usædvanlige stjerne i midten, HD 87643, er blevet grundigt undersøgt med flere af ESO’s teleskoper, herunder Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Det har vist sig, at stjernen, der er omgivet af en kompleks udstrakt tåge skabt af tidligere voldsomme udslyngninger, har en ledsager. Vekselvirkningerne i dette dobbeltsystem, der er omgivet af en støvskive, er måske den motor, som driver stjernens bemærkelsesværdige tåge.

29. juli 2009: Ved at bruge forskellige moderne teknikker på ESO’s Very Large Telescope, har to uafhængige grupper af astronomer opnået de skarpeste billeder nogensinde af superkæmpestjernen Betelgeuse. Billederne viser, at stjernen har en stor fjerformet sky af gas, der er næsten lige så stor som vores Solsystem, og en gigantisk kogende boble på overfladen. Disse opdagelser bidrager til at forklare, hvordan disse kæmper mister enorme mængder materiale på kort tid.

16. juli 2009: I dag har ESO udgivet et nyt og imponerende billede af himlen omkring Ørnetågen, der er en stjerne-fødeklinik, hvor spæde stjernehobe udskærer kæmpestore søjler af støv og gas.

7. juli 2009: Omegatågen, en fødeklinik for stjerner, hvor unge stjerner oplyser og former et stort pastelfarvet drømmebillede af støv og gas, bliver afsløret i al sin pragt på et nyt ESO-billede.

1. juli 2009: Astronomer har afsløret et enestående nyt atlas over de indre dele af vores galakse, Mælkevejen, overstrøet med tusindvis af hidtil uopdagede tætte klumper af koldt kosmisk støv – potentielle fødesteder for nye stjerner. Kortet, der er lavet med observationer fra APEX-teleskopet i Chile, er det hidtil største kort over koldt støv, og det vil være uvurderligt for observationer foretaget med det kommende ALMA-teleskop, samt ESA’s Herschel-rumteleskop, der blev opsendt for nylig.

25. juni 2009: Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way’s particle accelerators. They show in a paper published today on Science Express that cosmic rays from our galaxy are very efficiently accelerated in the remnants of exploded stars.

18. juni 2009: The next generation of instruments for ground-based telescopes took a leap forward with the development of a new ultra-fast camera that can take 1500 finely exposed images per second even when observing extremely faint objects. The first 240x240 pixel images with the world's fastest high precision faint light camera were obtained through a collaborative effort between ESO and three French laboratories from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (CNRS/INSU). Cameras such as this are key components of the next generation of adaptive optics instruments of Europe's ground-based astronomy flagship facility, the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT).

4. juni 2009: Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have obtained one of the sharpest views ever of the Arches Cluster — an extraordinary dense cluster of young stars near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Despite the extreme conditions astronomers were surprised to find the same proportions of low- and high-mass young stars in the cluster as are found in more tranquil locations in our Milky Way.

25. maj 2009: ESO’s Very Large Telescope — Europe’s flagship facility for ground-based astronomy — has been equipped with the first of its second generation instruments: X-shooter. It can record the entire spectrum of a celestial object in one shot — from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared — with high sensitivity. This unique new instrument will be particularly useful for the study of distant exploding objects called gamma-ray bursts.

20. maj 2009: Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have succeeded in measuring the size of giant galaxy Messier 87 and were surprised to find that its outer parts have been stripped away by still unknown effects. The galaxy also appears to be on a collision course with another giant galaxy in this very dynamic cluster.

6. maj 2009: Scientists and engineers working on the world's largest ground-based astronomical project, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have achieved another milestone — the successful linking of two ALMA astronomical antennas, synchronised with a precision of one millionth of a millionth of a second — to observe the planet Mars. ALMA is under construction by an international partnership in the Chilean Andes.

28. april 2009: ESO's Very Large Telescope has shown that a faint gamma-ray burst detected last Thursday is the signature of the explosion of the earliest, most distant known object in the Universe (a redshift of 8.2). The explosion apparently took place more than 13 billion years ago, only about 600 million years after the Big Bang.

22. april 2009: A new study published in Nature this week reveals that asteroid surfaces age and redden much faster than previously thought — in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid. This study has finally confirmed that the solar wind is the most likely cause of very rapid space weathering in asteroids. This fundamental result will help astronomers relate the appearance of an asteroid to its actual history and identify any after effects of a catastrophic impact with another asteroid.

21. april 2009: Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, “e”, in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. These amazing discoveries are the outcome of more than four years of observations using the most successful low-mass-exoplanet hunter in the world, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.

4. april 2009: To celebrate the 100 Hours of Astronomy, ESO is sharing two stunning images of unusual galaxies, both belonging to the Sculptor group of galaxies. The images, obtained at two of ESO’s observatories at La Silla and Paranal in Chile, illustrate the beauty of astronomy.

30. marts 2009: A live 24-hour free public video webcast, “Around the World in 80 Telescopes”, will take place from 3 April 09:00 UT/GMT to 4 April 09:00 UT/GMT, chasing day and night around the globe to let viewers “visit” some of the most advanced astronomical telescopes on and off the planet. The webcast, organised by ESO for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), is the first time that so many large observatories have been linked together for a public event.

24. marts 2009: ESO’s La Silla Observatory, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, became the largest astronomical observatory of its time. It led Europe to the frontline of astronomical research, and is still one of the most scientifically productive in ground-based astronomy.

16. marts 2009: The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises — interlopers both far and near.