Meddelanden från ESO

31 mars 2020: Applications for the ESO-supported Summer AstroCamp 2020 will open on 1 April 2020. AstroCamp is an academic programme in the field of astronomy and physics, organised by the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP), that aims to stimulate curiosity and critical thinking. The camp takes place from 9 to 23 August 2020 in a tranquil setting, away from the stresses of urban centres. The programme is intended for secondary school students from 42 different countries, including all ESO member countries, as well as Canada and the United States, in one of their final three years of education before university. The public presentation about AstroCamp 2020 took place on 22 February. The presentation video is available here. Students of all backgrounds will come together and take two courses consisting of daily lessons, assignments, and a final exam. Some further highlights include: Observing the dark night skies with the ...

9 mars 2020: Slutlig uppdatering (23 maj 2022): Från och med 28 maj tillåter ESO åter allmänhetens besök på observatorierna i Chile efter två års nedstängning på grund av pandemin. För mer information se detta meddelande. Uppdatering (9 maj 2022): Vid ESO:s högkvarter i Garching arbetar nu personalen åter heltid, men vissa restriktioner på grund av COVID-19 kvarstår. Besökare är nu välkomna till högkvarteret. ESO Supernova planetarium och besökscenter håller öppet under de vanliga tiderna, med visningar av planetariet och utställningen. Allt sker under vissa restriktioner på grund av COVID-19. Uppdatering (30 mars 2022): Två år efter att aktiviteterna på ESO:s observatorier i Chile reducerades på grund av pandemin är de nu åter i full drift. Bemanningen vid Paranal, La Silla och APEX kommer inom kort att vara tillbaka på samma nivå som innan pandemin, med alla teleskop och instrument igång och besökande astronomer välkomna tillbaka. Vissa försiktighetsåtgärder kommer fortsatt att beaktas, som ...

19 februari 2020: M1, the primary mirror of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), is the centrepiece of the revolutionary astronomy machine currently under construction in Chile's Atacama Desert. Too large to be made from a single piece of glass, the 39-metre-diameter mirror will consist of 798 hexagonal segments, each about 5 centimetres thick and measuring 1.4 metres across. Producing 798 segments (plus a few additional pieces) that can work together as a single giant mirror to deliver unprecedented astronomical data is an engineering challenge with milestones worth celebrating. M1 segments begin their life at SCHOTT in Germany as blanks made of Zerodur©, a glass-ceramic material that has very low thermal expansion. After the casting and machining of the blanks to their approximate shape at SCHOTT, the segments are delivered to Safran Reosc, in France. The first 24 segments are currently at Safran Reosc ready to be polished. Polishing facility inaugurated in Poitiers To ...

11 februari 2020: Today, the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, we highlight some of the steps ESO has taken towards diversity and inclusion, and how the organisation is celebrating this special day. On 30 January 2020, ESO and UN Women signed a Memorandum of Understanding at ESO’s Vitacura Office in Santiago, Chile, under which ESO stresses its commitment to advancing gender equality, diversity and inclusion. ESO and UN Women Chile will combine forces to promote science and engineering careers among young girls in Chile, as well as to create training opportunities for disadvantaged women who have struggled to finish their formal education. In addition, ESO will use the Women Empowerment Principles as guideposts to structure and measure the progress of its diversity and inclusion actions. The agreement was signed by María Noel Vaeza, UN Women Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean, and Xavier Barcons, ESO Director General, in ...

6 februari 2020: * * * This event has been cancelled. Please read this announcement for further information. * * * On 26 March 2020, ESO will participate in Germany’s Girls’ Day activities, in which technology companies, universities and research organisations open their doors to female school students to give them an insight into scientific and technological professions — encouraging more of them to choose careers in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Places for the event are limited. To register, please visit the Girls’ Day website. The ESO Girls’ Day will introduce the work of ESO and highlight many of our daily activities, such as astrophysical research, mechanical and optomechanical design and integration, operations, and much more. The programme includes introductory talks as well as hands-on workshops on astronomy and engineering. The students will learn how astronomical instruments are built, tested and operated. They will also learn how data are collected ...

4 februari 2020: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in printed form. This European journal for science teachers offers up-to-date information on cutting-edge science, teaching materials, science education projects, interviews with inspiring scientists and teachers, reviews of books, and many other useful resources for science teachers. It aims to promote science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists and others involved in European science education. Highlights of this issue include: an article summarising the methods planet hunters use to search for planets beyond the Solar System; an exploration of several theories of how life has emerged; and a presentation of the World’s fastest camera for soft X-rays in the News from EIROs section. Teaching activities include: an exciting experiment, not just for hobby detectives, in which latent fingerprints are made visible; an activity to grow plants as they would in outer space or on ...

4 februari 2020: The Big Science Business Forum 2020 (BSBF2020) is the second such event, intended as a one-stop-shop where European businesses and other stakeholders can learn about future investments and procurements on the part of Europe’s Big Science organisations. The event is organised by an International Organising Committee consisting of 10 Big Science organisations, ESO being one of them. The event will be hosted by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and CIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas. It takes place from 6 to 9 October 2020 in Granada, Spain. Update 8 October 2020: Given the current situation, the BSBF2020 International Organising Committee (IOC) has decided to postpone the BSBF2020 event to 28 September - 1 October 2021. In the meantime, several webinars are being organised. Big Science is a term that encapsulates the way in which scientific progress increasingly ...

3 februari 2020: The French company CILAS has won a multi-million Euro contract with an international organisation thanks in part to technology developed jointly with ESO. “This is a very nice example where ESO invested in technology research and development with a European company and strengthened its capabilities,” says Stefan Ströbele, an expert on deformable mirrors at ESO who worked with CILAS. CILAS, one of ESO's industrial partners and a pioneer in adaptive optics, built deformable mirrors for a number of instruments on ESO telescopes. Many instruments on modern telescopes rely on in-built adaptive optics systems to correct for the effects of atmospheric turbulence. Deformable mirrors are key components of these systems; by means of actuators, their surface can be deformed ever so slightly to compensate for the atmospheric distortion that makes the images fuzzy. To support research and technological development in Europe, and to ensure the availability of necessary technology for ESO ...

31 januari 2020: ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the world’s biggest eye on the sky, will have a pioneering five-mirror optical system that will allow it to unveil the Universe in unprecedented detail. The tertiary mirror in this system, M3, has completed a key production stage and has now been delivered to French company Safran Reosc for final polishing. Each of the mirrors on the ELT presents a significant technological challenge, with extreme precision required at each production stage to ensure flawless optical quality. The German company SCHOTT produced the mirror blank for M3 — a cast block of a glass-ceramic material known as ZerodurⓇ measuring more than four metres from edge to edge and weighing in at over three tonnes. After casting and machining the M3 blank to its approximate shape, SCHOTT delivered the mirror to Safran Reosc, who will now grind and polish it to a precision of 15 nanometres across ...

21 januari 2020: MICADO, the first dedicated imaging system for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), has reached an important milestone in its design review. The MICADO consortium, together with a group of external experts from around the world, met at ESO’s Garching headquarters for a week of intense examination of the instrument’s optics, mechanics, software, electronics, and budget plan to identify any areas which needed further design work. After the meeting, the MICADO team addressed all of the major concerns raised during the review and the instrument has now formally passed its preliminary design review. A more detailed design phase is now underway, leading towards the final design review and construction of the instrument’s many components. Equipped for both imaging and spectrographic observations, MICADO — the Multi-Adaptive Optics Imaging Camera for Deep Observations — will focus on near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy with unprecedented combination of sensitivity and accuracy. To compensate for the blurring ...

9 januari 2020: The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Insight Investment and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, has announced the key dates for the Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020 competition — its annual global search for the most beautiful and spectacular visions of the cosmos, whether they are striking pictures of vast galaxies millions of light-years away, or dramatic images of the night sky much closer to home. ESO will support the 2020 competition by providing a judge from its Department of Communication. Now in its twelfth year, the hugely popular competition opens to entrants on 13 January 2020, giving them the chance of taking home the grand prize of £10 000. Entrants will have until Friday 6 March 2020 to enter up to ten images in the various categories of the competition via www.rmg.co.uk/astrocomp. Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020 has nine main categories: Aurorae: Photographs ...

23 december 2019: The latest edition of ESO's quarterly journal, The Messenger, is now available online. Find out the latest news from ESO on topics ranging from new instruments to the latest science discoveries. Highlights of this edition include: ELT M4 — The Largest Adaptive Mirror Ever Built : Vernet et al. NEAR — The Search for Low-Mass Planets in α Cen: Kasper et al. GRAVITY Science: GRAVITY Collaboration et al. The ESO Summer Research Programme 2019: Manara et al. Download The Messenger in PDF format or visit The Messenger website to subscribe and receive a free printed copy. The printed version will be distributed after 17 January 2020. This product is also available in the ESOshop.

23 december 2019: Starting on 2 February 2020, the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre invites you to an immersive extravaganza touring the Solar System: The Planets 360. The inaugural screening of the show will take place on the first weekend when the ESO Supernova opens its doors again after its brief intermission in January. A slight departure from our usual features in the planetarium but no less impressive, The Planets 360 planetarium show is driven by a recording of Holst’s The Planets suite performed by the 132-piece UK Philharmonia Orchestra accompanied by magnificent Solar System visuals featuring the latest images that have been captured by robotic explorers. Science, music and art fuse into a 360° spectacle that brings the Solar System to life. Follow the journeys of space probes as you soar to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets, all the while enjoying musical interpretations of each one. You can reserve a ...

19 december 2019: Several space companies are developing plans for constellations of satellites to put in relatively low Earth orbits, for a variety of communication purposes. The recent launches of multiple batches of satellites for Space X’s Starlink project have drawn public and media attention, particularly as a result of the satellites’ high visibility immediately after launch. The astronomy community has raised concerns about the impact of these constellations on scientific research. In coordination with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), ESO and other observatories are evaluating the effects that these satellite constellations will have on ground-based optical and infrared astronomical observations. The calculations will soon be made public after undergoing independent peer review. Satellite constellations will have an impact on radio, millimetre and submillimetre observatories, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX). ESO has an observer ...

2 december 2019: As we carry out maintenance work and take some time to prepare for the year ahead, the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre will be closed during the first month of the New Year. We will reopen on Saturday 1 February 2020 and look forward to welcoming our visitors. The centre will not be open for visits or events, neither to the general public nor to private entities in January. We will be closed from 23 December until 7 January, as part of the regular winter holidays, and then we will continue to be closed from 8 January until 31 January. Activities will recommence on Saturday 1 February 2020, when our regular planetarium shows, guided tours, and educational workshops will resume. And also look out for some new shows and special events. Reservations for shows will remain open online and you can already book all our standard planetarium shows and ...

2 december 2019: ESO has signed a contract with SENER Aerospacial for the design and production of the support cell for the M5 mirror of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). SENER Aeroespacial will carry out the design, construction and verification of the cell for the M5 mirror, as well as its control system and auxiliary equipment. This complex mechanism has critical performances in terms of accuracy to ensure the stability of the flat elliptical mirror M5. The contract was signed on 29 November 2019 at ESO’s headquarters in Garching bei München in Germany by ESO’s Director General Xavier Barcons and the General Director of SENER Aeroespacial José Julián Echevarría. The ceremony was also attended by the Vice-Consul of Spain in Munich María Gonzalo Villanueva, representatives from the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, as well as by staff members of ESO and SENER ...

14 november 2019: This winter, the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre has a special addition to its programme: the show Enlightening Time Travel. Screening only 4 times during the month of December, the show takes you on a journey to the extremes of space, time, and energy, offering answers to questions such as: How did ancient cultures experience the impressive night sky? How did this impression change with the advent of the European Southern Observatory’s most advanced telescopes? Which stories were told back then, and which ones are today? During the one-hour planetarium show, settle down to wonder at the quiet sense of magic of the Universe, as it was felt thousands of years ago by ancient cultures and religions and as it is revealed now by the astronomers and engineers of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This special planetarium show will be shown between 1 and 22 December 2019. To reserve ...

12 november 2019: Reservations are now open for the ESO Supernova planetarium shows happening during the first half of 2020. If you are looking to plan your visit to the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre during the first half of 2020, reservations are now open online for all our standard planetarium shows, happening from February to June. New planetarium shows will be screened at our centre in 2020, but those will be announced separately as they enter our programme. Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to find out about special events and new shows. The ticket for a planetarium show costs €5/person, and the ticket for a guided tour costs €8/person. For public evening events, please consult our programme, as prices vary. In January, our centre will be closed for maintenance and to take some time to prepare for the year ahead. We will be closed from 23 December ...

5 november 2019: ESO is taking important steps to make its revolutionary new ground-based telescope greener. Next year, a power conditioning system and a photovoltaic plant will be installed at the site of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) with operations of both systems starting 2 years later. One of the biggest challenges in the construction of ESO’s ELT in Cerro Armazones, Antofagasta, Chile, is to ensure access to a clean and highly reliable electrical supply. Since the telescope is located close to areas that receive some of the highest amounts of solar radiation in the world, this goal can be achieved by installing and operating a power conditioning system to the grid supply and a photovoltaic plant, independent from the grid generator. Today, ESO signed a contract with the company SAESA to install and operate both facilities. The electrical power conditioning system will provide highly reliable electricity, will have full backup capacity, and ...

4 november 2019: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in printed form. This European journal for science teachers offers up-to-date information on cutting-edge science, teaching materials and projects in science education, interviews with inspiring scientists and teachers and many other useful resources for science teachers. It aims to promote science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists and others involved in European science education. Highlights of this issue include: an article answering the question of whether plants suffer from jet lag; a look behind the scenes at one of Europe’s largest laboratories to explore the different roles that make life-changing research happen; and an overview of ESA’s space science challenges for the new school year in the News from EIROs section. Teaching activities include: a visually exciting experiment to work out the empirical formula of a chemical compound; an activity to test the effectiveness ...