European
Southern
Observatory
ESO Science Newsletter October 2022
24 Oct 2022

This newsletter is a summary of recent ESO Science Announcement items. Follow the links or visit ESO Science Announcements to read more.



Science Announcements


The Messenger 188 is Now Available

21 Oct 2022:

The latest edition of ESO's journal for science and technologies, The Messenger, is now available online. Issue 188 opens with an overview article by ESO’s Director General on the forward look of the organisation 60 years after its creation. Next, our readers will find articles summarising the latest results in the search for variations in the fine-structure constant, what can we learn from spatially resolving active galactic nuclei, and whether young stellar quadruples could be the progenitors of supernovae Ia.  Issue 188 also features an overview of the Additional Representative Images for Legacy (ARI-L) Development Project for the ALMA Science Archive and a presentation of CUBES, the upcoming Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph for the VLT.

Read more


Save the date! Peer review under review workshop, Garching, February 6-10 2023

12 Oct 2022:

Many aspects of modern peer review have not changed from its inception in the 18th century despite drastic changes in the scientific community. Specifically, contrary to the early days of peer review, it has become a significant challenge to identify experts who can effectively review the more and more specialised fields of science.

The problem is exacerbated by the ever-rising number of researchers (having grown by 15% between 2014 and 2018 according to a UNESCO report), also seen through the staggering increase of publications and proposals (doubling every 14 years in astronomy). Some say that peer review has not adequately innovated as technology has advanced and the dissemination of publications has surged, creating a space for stagnant and biased reviews. ESO is organising a workshop to discuss these issues.

The workshop will take place at the ESO Headquarters in Garching (Germany) from February 6 to 10, 2023. In the workshop, we aim at bringing together experts from a large number of organisations and facilities (ESO, ESA, ALMA, STScI, NASA, NOIRLab) to discuss the state of peer review and the ways forward for a digital and interconnected science community. The workshop will be divided into 4 main sessions (Peer review at large; Methodologies; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in peer review; and Concrete examples) and it will include ample time for discussion.

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ALMA at 10 years: Past, Present, and Future

12 Oct 2022:

To commemorate its first decade of science operations, the ALMA partnership is organising a conference that will take a look back at the observatory accomplishments, highlight its latest results and look forward to future technical developments. The conference will be held in Puerto Varas, Chile on 4-8 December 2023. More information will be posted on the conference web page as it becomes available. Registration for the conference will open in early 2023.

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Results of the ACA Standalone Cycle 8 2021 Supplemental Call

12 Oct 2022:

A detailed report on the results of the ACA Standalone Cycle 8 2021 Supplemental Call is now available. The report details the proposal statistics and regional distributions, as well as the proposal distribution across science categories and receiver bands.

The report can be downloaded as a pdf document.

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Director’s Discretionary Time on VIRCAM/VISTA in P110

07 Oct 2022:

As announced in the P110 Call for Proposals, VIRCAM at VISTA is used to complete surveys and approved programmes. VIRCAM is available for Director’s Discretionary Time proposals until 15 December 2022 for observations to be conducted until March 2023 when VIRCAM will be dismounted. Only a fraction of the observing time during January and February 2023 will be available for science observations.

Technical activities to prepare VISTA for the arrival of the 4MOST spectroscopic survey instrument will take place starting from January.

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Applications for ESO Studentships – Second Annual Call

29 Sep 2022:

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for PhD students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories. ESO's studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. Students accepted into the programme work on their doctoral project under the formal supervision of their home university supervisor, but they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a period of a minimum of 6 months and up to two years.

The closing date for this application round is 30 November 2022.

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New Data Release of the Vista Magellanic Cloud Survey (VMC): YJKs Imaging of the LMC and Updated Survey Catalogues

26 Sep 2022:

The ESO Public Survey project VMC, ESO program 179.B-2003, PI M. R. Cioni, targets the Magellanic Cloud system in three filters: Y, J and Ks. The main goals are the determination of the spatially resolved star formation history and study the three-dimensional geometry of the system. This new data release DR6 provides the complete set of observations covering the Large Magellanic Cloud, ~110 deg2, taken between November 2009 and October 2018. It contains both newly released observations (61 tiles) and updated versions of the 7 LMC survey tiles previously released, reprocessed by CASU using the newer version of the pipeline v1.5 which includes improved photometric calibration.

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Coordinated Surveys of the Southern Sky (CS3), Garching, 27 February - 3 March 2023

21 Sep 2022:

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory are jointly organising a symposium with the main goal of maximising the science impact of surveys conducted by both organisation’s facilities.  The aims of the symposium are to raise awareness across the respective communities of survey capabilities and to build liaisons in preparation for synergetic surveys, as well as for multi-wavelength follow-up programs. To achieve this, the symposium will have sessions focussing on planned surveys and current and upcoming survey facilities, including SKA pathfinder and precursor instruments as well as the SKA, and ESO’s optical, near infrared and mm facilities. It will cover a variety of research areas: the Galaxy and Solar System science, galaxies and galaxy evolution, EOR and the high-redshift Universe, and transients and time-domain science. In addition, ample time will be reserved for more focussed discussion sessions to forge synergies between different teams and develop plans for collaborative surveys and cross-facility follow-up programs.

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Release of Pipeline Processed FORS2 Spectroscopic 1D Science Products

20 Sep 2022:

This data release provides access to reduced scientific 1D spectra obtained with FORS2, the visual and near-UV FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 on the VLT. Data acquired with one of the three spectroscopic modes of FORS2 (within the wavelength range of 330-1100 nm) are included in this release. These modes are long-slit spectroscopy (LSS) using a mask with 6.8′ slit length of different widths, and multi-object spectroscopy with movable slit blades (MOS, slit length about 20′′) or with masks (MXU, arbitrary slit length). The spectroscopic data have been reduced using the FORS2 pipeline version 5.6.1 or higher. Processing includes flat fielding, wavelength calibration, correction of spatial distortion, sky subtraction, optimal extraction of spectra, and flux calibration. The FORS2 pipeline extracts spectra from a single exposure. If several exposures on the same target are executed within the same observing template, the additional reduction step of stacking them together is performed using the ESOTK pipeline (version 0.9.5 or higher). In this case the single exposure spectra are made available as associated files, while the combined spectrum becomes the primary product. 

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Upcoming ESO or ESO-related workshops

Euclid is a high profile ESA mission with important participation from NASA and ground-based observatories around the world, to be launched in 2023. Euclid will provide near-IR imaging and slitless spectroscopy of a quality impossible to achieve from the ground (1). The mission aims at characterising with unprecedented accuracy the properties of Dark Energy by mapping the evolution of the large-scale structures of the Universe over the past 10 billion years. In addition to the primary cosmology science case, Euclid will have a major impact on our understanding of galaxy formation, from cosmic dawn to the present time.

The workshop will address ESA/ESO synergies and beyond, for realizing the full potential of the Euclid legacy programmes. Sessions will cover three major areas of research: high-redshift objects in the wide-and deep Euclid surveys, evolution of galaxies and their nuclear black holes at intermediate redshifts, and galaxies in the local universe.

Registration for this workshop has closed.

Exoplanets have become central to astrophysics. The formation and evolution of exoplanets can now be explored with instrumentation and observational techniques covering multiple physical scales and wavelengths. The composition and substructures of planet-forming disks can be observed directly, and we witness and characterise young proto-planets in formation. Planetary atmospheres, architectures and demographics can be systematically scrutinised to refine our understanding of the physical processes at play in the formation of giant and terrestrial planets, and in favorable conditions for the emergence of life. ESO facilities provide access to a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum to probe cold and hot phases, dynamics and interactions, close and distant environments, and the relations with the host star. Synergies between the ESO facilities have led to unique discoveries, e.g., the PDS 70 planetary system, and can successfully be used in synergy with space facilities, e.g., HST, CHEOPS, TESS, GAIA, JWST.

This workshop aims to provide an overview of the state of the field, to explore the synergies provided by ESO’s current and future facilities (ALMA/ELT/VLT/VLTI/La Silla telescopes/CTA), and synergies with other space and ground-based observatories (GAIA, JWST, PLATO, Roman observatory, LRIOUV, GMT, TMT). The main goal is to identify future scientific opportunities to consolidate key questions in planetary formation and characterization, contrasting and comparing how planned and potential instruments can answer them.

Registration is open and the deadline is 18th November 2022. 

The accretion and ejection of material are the two dominant processes driving star formation and protoplanetary disk evolution. Accretion via circumstellar disks has a significant footprint on both protostellar evolution and the pre-main-sequence phase, while the specific accretion rates set boundaries on the resulting stellar masses as well as the lifespan of protoplanetary discs. On the other hand, the ejection of matter, in the form of outflows, winds and jets, is a ubiquitous phenomenon towards young accreting stars of ranging masses and evolutionary stages. Indeed, jets/winds can remove excess angular momentum and have a strong influence on the final mass a star can reach, and on the immediate environment where planets form (i.e, the protoplanetary disks).

This workshop proposes to gather the Chilean-based star formation community working in this field, in order to debate the state-of-the-art theories and observations targeting the accretion/ejection processes in star formation. The aim is to establish a platform for students and early-career scientists in the field in addition to a limited number of invited overview talks. There will be ample time for discussion and interaction between the participants, thus aiding the interchange of knowledge on the different observational and numerical techniques and wavelength coverages for a range of stellar masses (low to high) and evolutionary stages (embedded to PMS). Being held at the ESO/Vitacura campus, the workshop will take advantage of the local knowledge in instrumentation and observational techniques (ALMA, VLT(I)). The rationale is to exchange recent results on accretion-ejection in young stars, from low to high mass and from early to more evolved stages.

The workshop is aimed to host up to 30 on-site participants. Given the limited amount of participants it is recommend not to book flights or accommodation until the SOC confirm your contribution (by 1st of October).

Modeling the mechanisms, AGN or stellar feedback, that expel baryons from collapsed structures and trigger the baryonic exchange, represent at the moment the major strength but also the greatest weakness of our paradigm of galaxy formation and evolution. 

The workshop aims at reviewing the latest results of the X-ray and SZ data able to characterise the hot phase of the elusive intra-group and circum-galactic medium in low mass halos. eROSITA, particularly sensitive in the soft X-ray band, revealed to be a perfect “filament & group finding machine” and is providing exciting results in this respect. In addition, the large effort of dedicated upcoming deep XMM surveys of local groups and ongoing stacking analysis of existing SZ datasets will make possible to extend our knowledge of the hot gas in the viral and circum-galactic region as never before. Furthermore, the availability of IFU observations from ESO/MUSE, ESO/KMOS, KCWI, HST/COS, Alma data and LOFAR radio data will enable revealing the multiphase nature of the CGM and its interconnection with the halo gas on larger scale, and with the central AGN and galactic component on smaller scale. By reviewing such new results and by comparing them with the current predictions, the MMC workshop will create a clear picture of where we stand in our understanding of the interplay between AGN feedback and gas in the bulk of the virialised dark matter halo population.

Abstract submission has closed.

Registration deadline is 15th November 2022.

Many aspects of modern peer review have not changed from its inception in the 18th century despite drastic changes in the scientific community. Specifically, contrary to the early days of peer review, it has become a significant challenge to identify experts that can effectively review the more and more specialized fields of science. The problem is exacerbated by the ever-rising number of researchers (having grown by 15% between 2014 and 2018 according to a UNESCO report) also seen through the staggering increase of publications and proposals (doubling every 14 years in astronomy). Some say that peer review has not adequately innovated as technology has advanced and the dissemination of publications has surged, creating a space for stagnant and biased reviews. In this workshop, we want to bring together experts from a large number of facilities (ESO, ESA, ALMA, Space Telescope, NASA, NOIRLab) to discuss the state of peer review and the ways forward for a digital and interconnected science community.

The workshop will be held at the ESO headquarters in Garching near Munich, from 6 to 10 February and will allow virtual as well as in-person participation. A first announcement, including details on the exact format, information on contributed presentations etc., will be circulated soon.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory are jointly organising a symposium with the main goal of maximising the science impact of surveys conducted by both organisation’s facilities.  The aims of the symposium are to raise awareness across the respective communities of survey capabilities and to build liaisons in preparation for synergetic surveys, as well as for multi-wavelength follow-up programs. To achieve this, the symposium will have sessions focussing on planned surveys and current and upcoming survey facilities, including SKA pathfinder and precursor instruments as well as the SKA, and ESO’s optical, near infrared and mm facilities. It will cover a variety of research areas: the Galaxy and Solar System science, galaxies and galaxy evolution, EOR and the high-redshift Universe, and transients and time-domain science. In addition, ample time will be reserved for more focussed discussion sessions to forge synergies between different teams and develop plans for collaborative surveys and cross-facility follow-up programs.

The symposium will be held at the ESO headquarters in Garching near Munich (Germany, UTC+1), from 27 February to 3 March and will allow virtual as well as in-person participation. 

Registration is open and the abstract submission deadline is 31st October 2022.