Anúncios

21 de Março de 2012: Como aperitivo do aniversário de 50 anos do ESO em outubro de 2012, estamos lançando oito ESOcasts especiais. Cada episódio é um capítulo do filme Europa para as estrelas – Os primeiros 50 anos da exploração do céu do Sul pelo ESO. O primeiro episódio especial, "Rumo ao Sul", relata o nascimento do ESO, e em particular o motivo dos astrónomos europeus decidirem explorar o céu do Sul ao instalar um observatório no Chile. Há 50 anos, quase todos os grandes telescópios estavam localizados a norte do Equador. Entretanto, os astrónomos perceberam a importância do céu do Sul. Por exemplo, o centro da Via Láctea, a nossa galáxia natal, difícilmente pode ser visto do hemisfério Norte, mas no Sul, ele passa mesmo por cima de nós. Outros objetos importantes são as Nuvens de Magalhães - duas pequenas galáxias satélites da Via Láctea – que não podem ser obsevadas da Europa, ...

19 de Março de 2012: O mais recente número da revista Science in School está disponível nas versões online e impressa. Como de costume, esta revista europeia destinada a professores de ciência e educadores oferece diversos artigos interessantes e atividades para os alunos. Nesta edição, damos uma olhadela à verdadeira ciência por detrás da ciência forense e vemos como os alunos podem fazer impressão genética em sala de aula. Ainda sobre isso, um artigo ensina a construir um microscópio. Em “Aproveitando o poder do Sol”, descobrimos como um reator de fusão nuclear Tokamak funciona. Outros artigos abordam a produção natural de hidrogénio por uma bactéria, a investigação feita sobre o aquecimento global na Antártida, a paixão de um cientista espacial por astronomia e um guia para construir e lançar seu próprio foguete de papel. Também é possível descobrir tudo sobre o mais recente Concurso da União Europeia para Jovens Cientistas, no qual os membros do ...

12 de Março de 2012: A famosa banda britânica de synthpop Erasure lançou hoje um vídeoclip do seu último single, Fill Us With Fire, como tributo ao aniversário dos 50 anos do ESO. O vídeo mostra o VLT e imagens do céu noturno obtidas pelos telescópios do ESO. Este é o terceiro single do álbum de 2011 Tomorrow's World. O projeto começou com uma visita do vocalista da banda, Andy Bell, ao observatório do Paranal. O observatório, lar do VLT, fica no pico de uma montanha a 2635 metros de altitude no deserto do Atacama, no norte do Chile, e oferece vistas incríveis do deserto que o rodeia e do céu noturno que o encima. Encantado com o cenário magnífico, Andy perguntou se poderia filmar enquanto estava no local. Andy passou um dia inteiro no Paranal em fevereiro de 2012, a filmar o mais recente single dos Erasure. A filmagem foi editada com algumas das ...

9 de Março de 2012: O Observatório Europeu do Sul lançou uma iniciativa que tem por objetivo adicionar informações extra contextualizadas (metadados) à sua enorme coleção de imagens. O padrão de Visualização Astronómica de Metadados recentemente implantado foi desenvolvido em colaboração com outros grandes observatórios, incluindo parceiros na NASA, ESA, Academia de Ciências da Califórnia e Universidade do Arizona. Agora é ainda mais fácil aprender mais sobre as fantásticas imagens do Universo, inclusive as dos arquivos do ESO. A Visualização Astronómica de Metadados (AVM, sigla do inglês) foi criada para facilitar o acesso a imagens astronómicas coletando informações de forma padrão [1]. Esta informação extra, conhecida como metadados, inclui detalhes similares àqueles encontrados em qualquer fotografia digital das atuais máquinas fotográficas: quem tirou a fotografia, quando foi tirada, para onde estava apontada a câmara no céu e por aí adiante. Ao mesmo tempo, esta funcionalidade foi especialmente projetada para imagens astronómicas dirigidas ao público [2], ...

9 de Março de 2012: Com o Dr. Henk Spruit (Instituto Max-Planck de Astrofísica) O aquecimento global e o efeito de estufa causado pelo dióxido de carbono afetam-nos todos. O Sol dá-nos o calor necessário para sobreviver. Mas poderia parte do aquecimento global ser causado por mudanças no Sol e não pelos nossos gases de estufa? Por outras palavras, seremos mesmo nós os principais culpados? Nas notícias costumamos ouvir falar sobre as destrutivas chuvas tropicais, o frio extremo ou invernos excepcionalmente quentes. Serão estes fenómenos causados pelo aquecimento global? As companhias de seguros juntaram várias estatísticas. O Dr. Henk Spruit, do Instituto Max-Plank de Astrofísica, irá debater estes problemas críticos com os convidados do Café & Kosmos no dia 14 de março. Irão ser também debatidas as recentes mudanças no Sol, como entendemos nossa estrela, e o que acontece dentro dela. O evento Café & Kosmos acontece na Alemanha. O quê: O Sol, as Manchas ...

6 de Março de 2012: A BMW, construtora icónica de carros da Baviera, escolheu o Observatório do Paranal do ESO, lar do VLT, para a sua campanha publicitária mundial do seu novo modelo top de gama, o Série 6 Gran Coupé, que tem estreia marcada para o dia 6 de março de 2012 no Salão Internacional do Automóvel em Genebra. Podemos ver este modelo exclusivo estacionado em frente a alguns dos Telescópios Principais e Telescópios Auxiliares do VLT. Quem conhece o observatório certamente notará que uma nova construção foi adicionada. O local alterado, com cores predominantemente metálicas e tons de terra, e o novo coupé da BMW parecem saídos diretamente de um filme de James Bond. De facto, a premiada Residência do Observatório do Paranal é exatamente isso. Outro elemento pouco comum da imagem é a presença de nuvens. Apesar de comuns em vários lugares da Terra, o Paranal possui 330 dias limpos por ano. ...

2 de Março de 2012: Um espelho extraordinariamente fino foi entregue ao VLT do ESO pela companhia francesa SAGEM. O espelho tem um diâmetro de 1120 milímetros, mas apenas 2 milímetros de espessura, o que o torna mais fino que a maioria dos vidros utilizados em janelas. O espelho tem que ser suficientemente fino para atuar praticamente como uma membrana flexível. Quando instalado no telescópio, o formato da sua superfície refletiva será constantemente e milimetricamente alterado, corrigindo os efeitos de distorção causados pela atmosfera terrestre, dando assim origem a imagens muito mais nítidas. O espelho é composto por uma folha de material cerâmico polida de forma muito precisa. O processo de construção começa com um bloco de cerâmica Zerodur com mais de 70 milímetros de espessura, fornecido pela Schott Glass (Alemanha). A maior parte do material é desgastado para criar a fina casca final. O desafio é aplicar pouquíssima pressão e baixos níveis de stress ...

29 de Fevereiro de 2012: O ESO pede propostas de observação para o Período 90. O prazo para submissão online expira às 11h00 UT de 29 de Março de 2012.

24 de Fevereiro de 2012: The next pieces of the jigsaw for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) — the world’s biggest eye on the sky — are coming together. At ESO’s Garching facility in Germany, a full-size mock-up of a small section of the E-ELT primary mirror and its support structures provides a first test of multiple segments of the E-ELT’s main mirror. Four of the 1.45-metre segments — the final mirror will have 798 — are being put through their paces to see how these hexagonal mirrors and their complex support units behave in real conditions, and whether they match the exacting requirements needed for the telescope. The mirror segments are made from different types of material from different manufacturers and are not yet coated to make them reflective. The current tests focus on the mechanical support systems, whose advanced sensors and actuators are used to keep the separate segments in the right ...

22 de Fevereiro de 2012: Four special telescopes to fire laser beams high into the atmosphere to create artificial stars have been delivered to ESO. These are vital components of the Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) for ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) that were developed by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). The 4LGSF is part of a next-generation adaptive optics system, the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF), that will make the VLT’s 4th Unit Telescope Yepun a fully adaptive telescope in 2013. Composed of four powerful 20-watt lasers, the 4LGSF will help the VLT correct the image distortion caused by turbulence in the air. Telescopes usually collect light coming from the sky and focus it into an instrument. However, the new components send light in the opposite direction. These “launchers”, are used to project the lasers into the sky to create brilliant points of light. The laser beams excite a layer of ...

6 de Fevereiro de 2012: with Dr Markus Kissler Patig, ESO The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is setting out to build the largest optical telescope ever conceived: the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). This giant, with a primary mirror of 40 metres in diameter, is one of the most ambitious research infrastructures of the next decade, worldwide! Dr Markus Kissler-Patig (ESO), the Project Scientist for the E-ELT, will present the project and its technical challenges. Much of the necessary technology is forefront research, and the complexity of the machine is immense, promising headaches for many engineers over the next decade. He will discuss with the guests of Café & Kosmos why such a challenge is worthwhile: this observatory will allow ground-breaking discoveries in many fields. For the first time, we will be technically capable of not only detecting, but also characterising habitable planets beyond the Solar System. We will also be able to measure the ...

3 de Fevereiro de 2012: World-renowned Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory have been awarded the 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences for their work on exoplanets. The foundation recognised their groundbreaking efforts in developing “new astronomical instruments and experimental techniques that led to the observation of planets outside the solar system”. These were instrumental in the first discovery of an exoplanet around a normal star, made by their team in 1995. The discovery revolutionised astronomy and initiated an entire new field that is focused on finding and characterising exoplanets. Since then, this field has been recognised by agencies and institutes around the world as one of the major challenges for astronomy in the coming decades. Michel Mayor and his then PhD student Didier Queloz developed the radial velocity technique for planet detection, which looks for the wobble of a star caused by the gravitational pull ...

26 de Janeiro de 2012: The Italian astronomer Franco Pacini, who was a key figure in the astronomy community, passed away yesterday, on 25 January 2012. Pacini began his long-term involvement with ESO in 1975, when he joined the newly created Scientific Division, based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1978 he moved back to Italy as Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Florence and Director of the Arcetri Observatory, which he led until the creation of INAF in 2001. He played an important role in the accession of Italy to ESO in 1982, represented Italy on the ESO Council — ESO’s governing body — and was also Council President between 1991 and 1994. He served as President of the International Astronomical Union between 2001 and 2003, and was the founding father of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, a huge success for scientific outreach and increasing the awareness of astronomy around the world. He will ...

19 de Janeiro de 2012: The site of ESO’s Paranal Observatory, home of the world’s most advanced optical instrument, the Very Large Telescope (VLT), was one of the selected locations for an ad campaign entitled “Perfect Places”, recently launched worldwide by the British car maker Land Rover. The campaign presents Land Rover vehicles shot in unique places around the globe. The combination of state-of-the art technology, cutting-edge science, a stunning environment and impressive facilities makes ESO’s Paranal Observatory a unique place in the world for scientists, engineers and visitors alike. However, ESO’s site in Chile has recently drawn the attention of Land Rover as well, as being the perfect choice for “Perfect Places”, their new print and digital media ad campaign. Apart from being the best place for ground-based optical astronomy due to the astronomical quality of the atmosphere — characterised by the number of clear nights and the stability of the atmosphere (also known ...

19 de Janeiro de 2012: The American Astronomical Society has awarded the 2012 Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation to Thijs de Graauw for his leadership in the construction of powerful new astronomical instruments including the Short Wavelength Spectrometer on the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and the Heterodyne Instrument For the Infrared (HIFI) on the Herschel Space Observatory. HIFI is a spectrometer placed on the European Space Agency's infrared space observatory Herschel, which was launched in May 2009. HIFI was built to look for water in a variety of celestial objects, to probe stellar environments, and to study the role of gas and dust in the formation of stars and planets, and the evolution of galaxies. Recently, thanks to HIFI, Herschel confirmed that some comets contain water similar to that on Earth, supporting the theory that Earth's water comes from comets. It also discovered cold water vapour in a disk of dust around a young ...

19 de Janeiro de 2012: Earlier today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2012 Crafoord Prize in Astronomy to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their separate work on proving the existence of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. German astronomer Reinhard Genzel is director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, located in Garching on the same campus as ESO’s headquarters. His team has been involved in an unprecedented 20-year-long study of the movement of stars around the galactic centre, which is based on observations made with ESO’s New Technology Telescope at La Silla as well as ESO’s Very Large Telescope on Paranal. The tracking of the orbits of these stars over many years has enabled astronomers to provide the strongest evidence yet of the presence of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, as evidenced by the tight orbits of the stars due ...

18 de Janeiro de 2012: The New York Times has included the Back in Time app developed by the company Landka among its Top 10 iPad apps in 2011. ESO went into partnership with Landka to deliver content for this educational app, which is an animated history e-book that guides the reader through time from the first moments of the Universe’s history until the most recent events. ESO contributed images and animations for the first four chapters: The Big Bang, The First Stars, The Milky Way and The Solar System.According to The New York Times: “The coolest history textbook you’ll find on the iPad, Back in Time tells the story of the Universe using a 24-hour clock, where the Big Bang starts the day and humans appear in the final seconds.”An intuitive interface allows the user to scroll quickly through time, entering any major event in the history of our civilisation. Each event is documented ...

16 de Janeiro de 2012: This episode of the ESOcast looks at one of the key discoveries in physics made by astronomers in the past two decades: that our Universe is not only expanding, but that this expansion is also speeding up. Observations from ESO’s telescopes in Chile played a significant role in this revolutionary discovery, and scientists Saul Perlmutter (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, USA), Brian P. Schmidt (Australian National University), and Adam G. Riess (STScI, Baltimore, USA) were awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the find. Two of the follow-up projects were led by ESO staff members, Chris Lidman and Bruno Leibundgut, and other ESO staff members, Isobel Hook and Jason Spyromilio, were contributors to crucial papers. By observing exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae, teams led by the Nobel laureates established that the expansion of the Universe was not slowing down, as had been expected ...

9 de Janeiro de 2012: with Prof. Jochen Schieck, Excellence Cluster Universe The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the best-validated models in physics today. Nevertheless, this model fails to account for some observed phenomena, such as dark matter, or the fact that there is no longer any antimatter in the Universe. With particle accelerators, scientists are trying to recreate the conditions in the early Universe and attempt to tackle these open questions. At Café & Kosmos on 10 January 2012, Professor Jochen Schieck (Excellence Cluster Universe) will describe two new accelerators before discussing their collision experiments: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and the new Super KEKB accelerator, which will start up in 2014, from the Japanese High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation, KEK. While the experiments at the LHC are tuned for very high energies, the physicists are adjusting the "newcomer" Super KEKB for maximum precision. Jochen Schieck will discuss with ...

5 de Janeiro de 2012: On 1 January 2012, European radio astronomy entered a new era with the implementation of RadioNet3, the third iteration of RadioNet, the European radio astronomy collaboration. As the recognised European body for radio astronomy, RadioNet aims at facilitating access to leading radio astronomy facilities around the world for European radio astronomers. The European Commission recently secured the project by granting it 9.5 million euros for the period 2012–2015. The Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) will work with 24 European partner institutions, as well as South Korea, Australia and South Africa, to offer access to all 18 existing radio astronomy facilities in Europe. The project will also take full advantage of the APEX telescope operated by ESO, as well as the recently opened Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of which ESO is a partner, both located in Chile. By promoting cooperation and making use of state-of-the-art facilities around the world, ...