ESO Archives

October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Images of 42 of the Biggest Asteroids in the Solar System

This image depicts 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. Most of them are larger than 100 kilometres, with the two biggest asteroids being Ceres and Vesta, which are around 940 and 520 kilometres in diameter, and the two smallest ones being Urania and Ausonia, each only about 90 kilometres. The images of the asteroids have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope.

A huge team of astronomers have combined forces to use the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) to provide the sharpest view ever of 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.

Fittingly, the collection of images was released on the 42nd anniversary of the publication of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. In the book, the number 42 is the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” These 42 images represent some of the sharpest views ever of these objects — which might contribute to answering these ultimate questions!

Plus, there’s a great poster of the asteroids, too:

September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 by Matthew Cimone

The Galactic Beauty of Star Formation

Image of Galaxy NGC 3627 located in the constellation LEO. The golden gas glow corresponds to clouds of ionized hydrogen, while the bluish regions reveal the distribution of slightly older stars. Credit: ESO/PHANGS

I’d never seen galaxy images like this before. Nobody had! These images highlight star forming regions in nearby(ish) galaxies. There are still a number of unanswered questions surrounding how star formation actually occurs. To answer those questions, we are observing galaxies that are actively forming stars within giant clouds of gas. Until recently, we didn’t have the resolution needed to clearly image the individual gas clouds themselves. But images released by a project called PHANGS (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS) in a collaboration between the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large millimeter/submillmeter Array (ALMA) have provided never before seen detail of star forming clouds in other galaxies.

This image combines observations of the nearby galaxies NGC 1300, NGC 1087, NGC 3627 (top, from left to right), NGC 4254 and NGC 4303 (bottom, from left to right) taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Each individual image is a combination of observations conducted at different wavelengths of light to map stellar populations and warm gas.. Image and Image Description PHANGS/ESO. Original Image

September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

A Powerful new Laser Will Enhance Adaptive Optics

In some applications, bigger lasers mean better lasers. That is the case in astronomy, where lasers are used for everything from telescope calibration to satellite communication. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and some of its commercial partners have developed a laser 3 times more powerful than the existing industry standard. With that increased power level, the new system has the potential to dramatically improve the way telescopes deal with one of the most fundamental problems in ground-based astronomy – atmospheric turbulence.

March 12, 2021March 12, 2021 by Matt Williams

The Giant Magellan Telescope’s 6th Mirror has Just Been Cast. One More to Go

By 2029, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in northern Chile will begin collecting its first light from the cosmos. As part of a new class of next-generation instruments known as “extremely large telescopes” (ELTs), the GMT will combine the power of sophisticated primary mirrors, flexible secondary mirrors, adaptive optics (AOs), and spectrometers to see further and with greater detail than any optical telescopes that came before.

At the heart of the telescope are seven monolithic mirror segments, each measuring 8.4 m (27.6 ft) in diameter, which will give it the resolving power of a 24.5 m (80.4 ft) primary mirror. According to recent statements from the GMT Organization (GMTO), the University of Arizona’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab began casting the sixth and seventh segments for the telescope’s primary mirror (which will take the next four years to complete).

January 18, 2021January 18, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope

In the vein of “go big or go home,” the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has launched a stunning new website to showcase information about — and match the scale of — its Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the highly anticipated observatory scheduled to have first light in 2025.

December 19, 2020December 19, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

The European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now Costing $1.5 Billion

Funding is an extremely important aspect of any large-scale science project. The whims of financial controllers can greatly expand or completely sink the efforts of hundred or thousands of other workers. Many times, funding announcements for large scientific projects focus on cuts or “cost-savings” which hobble the eventual end system they are trying to build. But recently the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced it had actually increased the budget for the under-construction Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) by 10%.

July 23, 2020July 23, 2020 by Evan Gough

Wow! An Actual Picture of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Sunlike Star

This image, captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the star TYC 8998-760-1 accompanied by two giant exoplanets. This is the first time astronomers have directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, Sun-like star (on the top left corner) using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The bright and dark rings we see on the star’s image are optical artefacts. The two planets are visible as two bright dots in the centre and bottom right of the frame. Image Credit: ESO/Bohn et al, 2020

We’ve detected thousands of exoplanets, but for the most part, nobody’s ever seen them. They’re really just data, and graphs of light curves. The exoplanet images you see here at Universe Today and other space websites are the creations of very skilled illustrators, equal parts data and creative license. But that’s starting to change.

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured images of two exoplanets orbiting a young, Sun-like star.

May 10, 2020May 10, 2020 by Matt Williams

Closest Black Hole Found, Just 1,000 Light-Years From Earth

This artist’s impression shows the orbits of the objects in the HR 6819 triple system. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Black holes are invisible to the naked eye, have no locally detectable features, and even light can’t escape them. And yet, their influence on their surrounding environment makes them the perfect laboratory for testing physics under extreme conditions. In particular, they offer astronomers a chance to test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which postulates that the curvature of space-time is altered by the presence of a gravity.

Thanks to a team of astronomers led by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the closest black hole has just been found! Using the ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, the team found this black hole in a triple system located just 1000 light-years from Earth in the Telescopium constellation. Known as HR 6819, this system can be seen with the naked eye and could one of many “quiet” black holes that are out there.

April 25, 2020April 25, 2020 by Matt Williams

A Star is Orbiting the Milky Way’s Black Hole and Moving Exactly How Einstein Predicted it Should

Observations made with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed for the first time that a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way moves just as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Its orbit is shaped like a rosette and not like an ellipse as predicted by Newton's theory of gravity. This effect, known as Schwarzschild precession, had never before been measured for a star around a supermassive black hole. This artist’s impression illustrates the precession of the star’s orbit, with the effect exaggerated for easier visualisation.

At the center of our galaxy, roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth, is the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) known as Sagittarius A*. The powerful gravity of this object and the dense cluster of stars around it provide astronomers with a unique environment for testing physics under the most extreme conditions. In particular, it offers them a chance to test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (GR).

For example, in the past thirty years, astronomers have been observing a star in the vicinity of Sagittarius A* (S2) to see if its orbit conforms to what is predicted by General Relativity. Recent observations made with the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have completed an observation campaign that confirmed that the star’s orbit is rosette-shaped, once again proving that Einstein theory was right on the money!

December 21, 2019December 21, 2019 by Matt Williams

Black Holes Were Already Feasting Just 1.5 Billion Years After the Big Bang

This illustration depicts a gas halo surrounding a quasar in the early Universe. The quasar, in orange, has two powerful jets and a supermassive black hole at its centre, which is surrounded by a dusty disc. The gas halo of glowing hydrogen gas is represented in blue. A team of astronomers surveyed 31 distant quasars, seeing them as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. They found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100 000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. These gas stashes provide the perfect food source to sustain the growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.

Thanks to the vastly improved capabilities of today’s telescopes, astronomers have been probing deeper into the cosmos and further back in time. In so doing, they have been able to address some long-standing mysteries about how the Universe evolved since the Big Bang. One of these mysteries is how supermassive black holes (SMBHs), which play a crucial role in the evolution of galaxies, formed during the early Universe.

Using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, an international team of astronomers observed galaxies as they appeared about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang (ca. 12.5 billion years ago). Surprisingly, they observed large reservoirs of cool hydrogen gas that could have provided a sufficient “food source” for SMBHs. These results could explain how SMBHs grew so fast during the period known as the Cosmic Dawn.