Astronomers have accurately measured the diameter of the faraway dwarf planet Eris for the first time by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star. This event was seen at the end of 2010 by telescopes in Chile, including the Belgian TRAPPIST telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. The observations show that Eris is an almost perfect twin of Pluto in size. Eris appears to have a very reflective surface, suggesting that it is uniformly covered in a thin layer of ice, probably a frozen atmosphere. The results will be published in the 27 October 2011 issue of the journal Nature.
The release, images and videos are available on:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1142/
Translations are available in: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese/Brazil, Portuguese/Portugal, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian
Kind regards,
The ESO Education and Public Outreach Department
26 October 2011
|
26 October 2011: Astronomers have accurately measured the diameter of the faraway dwarf planet Eris for the first time by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star. This event ...
|
| Read more |
|
21 October 2011: In a ceremony at the Chilean Consulate General in Hamburg, Germany, the Consul General, Eduardo Schott, awarded the rank of Commander of the Order of Bernardo O’Higgins to Hans-Emil Schuster ...
|
| Read more |
|
19 October 2011: Los Universos de Matta (Matta’s Universes) is a new exhibition inaugurated at the University of Santiago (USACH) Planetarium on 13 October 2011. Inspired by the work of the multifaceted Chilean ...
|
| Read more |
|
26 October 2011: A professional crew from an Austrian satellite/cable channel, Servus TV, spent five days at the ALMA site, from 10-14 October, shooting material for the eighth episode of Mission Universum. Mission ...
|
| Read more |
|
26 October 2011: Pavel Fadeev, the 19-year-old student from Israel who won the special ESO prize at the 22nd European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS), enjoyed the trip of a lifetime to ...
|
| Read more |
|
|
|
|
