First Light for SPECULOOS Southern Observatory’s Europa Telescope

This first light image from the Europa telescope at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) shows M83, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. M83 is a picturesque and often-imaged galaxy — this object was also a first light image the SPECULOOS prototype telescope, TRAPPIST-South at ESO’s La Silla Observatory.

The SSO is installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the vast Atacama Desert, Chile, and consists of four 1-metre planet-hunting telescopes. The project’s telescopes are named after Jupiter’s Galilean moons, and are neighbours of ESO's Very Large Telescope and VISTA . SPECULOOS will focus on detecting Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs.