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11 June 2003: To a first approximation, planets and stars are round. Think of the Earth we live on. Think of the Sun, the nearest star, and how it looks in the sky. But if you think more about it, you realize that this is not completely true. Due to its daily rotation, the solid Earth is slightly flattened ("oblate") - its equatorial radius is some 21 km (0.3%) larger than the polar one. Stars are enormous gaseous spheres and some of them are known to rotate quite fast, much faster than the Earth. This would obviously cause such stars to become flattened. But how flat? Recent observations with the VLT Interferometer (VLTI) at the ESO Paranal Observatory have allowed a group of astronomers [1] to obtain by far the most detailed view of the general shape of a fast-spinning hot star, Achernar (Alpha Eridani) , the brightest in the southern constellation Eridanus (The River). They find that Achernar is much flatter than expected - its equatorial radius is more than 50% larger than the polar one! In other words, this star is shaped very much like the well-known spinning-top toy, so popular among young children. The high degree of flattening measured for Achernar - a first in observational astrophysics - now poses an unprecedented challenge for theoretical astrophysics . The effect cannot be reproduced by common models of stellar interiors unless certain phenomena are incorporated, e.g. meridional circulation on the surface ("north-south streams") and non-uniform rotation at different depths inside the star. As this example shows, interferometric techniques will ultimately provide very detailed information about the shapes, surface conditions and interior structure of stars.

13 May 2003: On April 18, 2003, a team of engineers from ESO celebrated the successful accomplishment of "First Light" for the MACAO-VLTI Adaptive Optics facility on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory (Chile). This is the second Adaptive Optics (AO) system put into operation at this observatory, following the NACO facility. The achievable image sharpness of a ground-based telescope is normally limited by the effect of atmospheric turbulence. However, with Adaptive Optics (AO) techniques, this major drawback can be overcome so that the telescope produces images that are as sharp as theoretically possible, i.e., as if they were taken from space. The acronym "MACAO" stands for "Multi Application Curvature Adaptive Optics" which refers to the particular way optical corrections are made which "eliminate" the blurring effect of atmospheric turbulence. The MACAO-VLTI facility was developed at ESO. It is a highly complex system of which four, one for each 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescope, will be installed below the telescopes (in the Coudé rooms). These systems correct the distortions of the light beams from the large telescopes (induced by the atmospheric turbulence) before they are directed towards the common focus at the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The installation of the four MACAO-VLTI units of which the first one is now in place, will amount to nothing less than a revolution in VLT interferometry. An enormous gain in efficiency will result, because of the associated 100-fold gain in sensitivity of the VLTI. Put in simple words, with MACAO-VLTI it will become possible to observe celestial objects 100 times fainter than now . Soon the astronomers will be thus able to obtain interference fringes with the VLTI of a large number of objects hitherto out of reach with this powerful observing technique, e.g. external galaxies. The ensuing high-resolution images and spectra will open entirely new perspectives in extragalactic research and also in the studies of many faint objects in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. During the present period, the first of the four MACAO-VLTI facilties was installed, integrated and tested by means of a series of observations. For these tests, an infrared camera was specially developed which allowed a detailed evaluation of the performance. It also provided some first, spectacular views of various celestial objects, some of which are shown here.

15 March 2003: Observations with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile) have provided the first-ever direct determination of the angular sizes of the disks of the solar-type stars Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. As the two largest members of this triple stellar system that also includes the much smaller Proxima Centauri, they are the Sun's nearest neighbours in space at a distance of just over 4 light-years. Together with photometric and asteroseismic observations, this fundamental measurement with the VLTI has lead to a complete characterization of Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B - they are now the "best known" stars. This has also allowed a unique and very detailed comparison between "real nature" and current stellar theory for solar-type stars. There is clearly very good agreement, indicating that the structure and evolution of stars like our Sun are well understood. The new observations of the nearest stars have therefore contributed to raise the astronomers' confidence in their solar models as well. We can now be more sure about the conditions inside the Sun, our central energy source, and also about the way it will change during the next hundreds of millions of years.

18 December 2002: Following several weeks of around-the-clock work, a team of astronomers and engineers from Germany, the Netherlands, France and ESO [2] has successfully performed the first observations with the MID-Infrared interferometric instrument (MIDI), a new, extremely powerful instrument just installed in the underground laboratory of the VLT Interferometer (VLTI) at the Paranal Observatory (Chile). In the early morning of December 15, 2002, two of the 8.2 m VLT unit telescopes (ANTU and MELIPAL) were pointed towards the southern star Epsilon Carinae and the two light beams were directed via the complex intervening optics system towards MIDI. After a few hours of tuning and optimization, strong and stable interferometric fringes were obtained, indicating that all VLTI components - from telescopes to the new instrument - were working together perfectly. Two more stars were observed before sunrise, further proving the stability of the entire system. The first observations with MIDI mark one more important step towards full and regular operation of the VLT Interferometer [3]. They are a result of five years of determined efforts within a concerted technology project, based on a close collaboration between ESO and several European research institutes (see below). Now opening great research vistas, they also represent several "firsts" in observational astrophysics, together amounting to a real breakthrough in the field of astronomical interferometry.

29 November 2002: At a distance of only 4.2 light-years, Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to the Sun currently known [2]. It is visible as an 11-magnitude object in the southern constellation of Centaurus and is the faintest member of a triple system, together with Alpha Centauri, the brightest (double) star in this constellation. Proxima Centauri is a very-low-mass star, in fact barely massive enough to burn hydrogen to helium in its interior. It is about seven times smaller than the Sun, and the surface temperature is "only" about 3000 degrees, about half of that of our own star. Consequently, it is also much fainter - the intrinsic brightness is only 1/150th of that of our Sun. Low-mass stars are very interesting objects , also because the physical conditions in their interiors have much in common with those of giant planets, like Jupiter in our solar system. A determination of the sizes of the smallest stars has been impossible until now because of their general faintness and lack of adequate instrumentation. However, astronomers have long been keen to move forward in this direction, since such measurements would provide indirect, crucial information about the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions. When the first observations with the VLT Interferometer (VLTI), combining the light from two of the 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescopes (ANTU and MELIPAL), were made one year ago, interferometric measurements were also obtained of Proxima Centauri . They formed part of the VLTI commissioning and the data were soon released to the ESO community, cf. the special website. Now, an international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and ESO/Chile has successfully analysed these observations by means of newly developed, advanced software. For the first time ever, they obtained a highly accurate measurement of the size of such a small star. Three other small stars were also measured and the results are in excellent agreement with stellar theory, indicating that our present understanding of the structure and composition of very small stars is reasonably correct . More VLTI observations are soon to follow, eventually also of even smaller objects, like Brown Dwarfs.

5 November 2001: It started as a preparatory technical experiment and it soon developed into a spectacular success. Those astronomers and engineers who were present in the control room that night now think of it as the scientific dawn of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). On October 29, 2001, ANTU and MELIPAL, two of the four VLT 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes at the ESO Paranal Observatory, were linked for the first time. Light from the southern star Achernar (Alpha Eridani) was captured by the two telescopes and sent to a common focus in the observatory's Interferometric Laboratory.

18 March 2001: Following the "First Light" for the fourth of the 8.2-metre telescopes of the VLT Observatory on Paranal in September 2000, ESO scientists and engineers have just successfully accomplished the next major step of this large project.

13 November 2000: A few months from now, light from celestial objects will be directed for the first time towards ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the Paranal Observatory (Chile). During this "First Light" event and the subsequent test phase, the light will be recorded with a special test instrument, VINCI (VLT INterferometer Commissioning Instrument). The main components of this high-tech instrument are aptly named MONA (a system that combines the light beams from several telescopes by means of optical fibers) and LISA (the infrared camera). VINCI was designed and constructed within a fruitful collaboration between ESO and several research institutes and industrial companies in France and Germany. It is now being assembled at the ESO Headquarters in Garching (Germany) and will soon be ready for installation at the telescope on Paranal. With the VLTI and VINCI, Europe's astronomers are now entering the first, crucial phase of an exciting scientific and technology venture that will ultimately put the world's most powerful optical/IR interferometric facility in their hands.

11 October 2000: Less than one month after "First Light" for the fourth 8.2-m YEPUN telescope (ESO PR 18/00), another special moment occurred at ESO's Paranal Observatory. This time, it was the first truly "underground" event, in the 168-metre long Interferometric Tunnel that has been dug beneath the platform at the top of the mountain. As one staff member remarked on this occasion, it was something like "the first scheduled trip of the Paranal metro"!

24 May 2000: European science and technology will gain further strength when the new, front-line Nova-ESO VLTI Expertise Centre (NEVEC) opens in Leiden (The Netherlands) this week. It is a joint venture of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) (itself a collaboration between the Universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden, and Utrecht) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is concerned with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI).

29 July 1998: The company AMOS (Liège, Belgium) has been awarded an ESO contract for the delivery of the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Each of these telescopes has a main mirror of 1.8-metre diameter. They move on (railway) tracks on the top of the Paranal mountain. Together with the main 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescopes (UTs), they will ensure that the VLTI will have unequalled sensitivity and image sharpness that will allow front-line astronomical observations.

11 March 1998: The European Southern Observatory is building the world's largest optical telescope, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) , at the ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VLT consists of four 8.2-m unit telescopes and several smaller, moveable Auxiliary Telescopes. When coupled as the giant VLT Interferometer (VLTI) , they will together provide the sharpest images ever obtained by any optical telescope. It will in principle be able to see an astronaut on the surface of the Moon, 400,000 km away.