ESO for the Public

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It operates three sites in Chile — La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor — on behalf of its fifteen member states. It builds ALMA together with international partners, and designs the European Extremely Large Telescope .

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, builds and operates a suite of the world's most advanced ground-based astronomical telescopes

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Press Releases

2 January 2013 - Science Release eso1301

ALMA Sheds Light on Planet-Forming Gas Streams — Tantalising signs of flows feeding gas-guzzling giant planets

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have seen a key stage in the birth of giant planets for the first time. Vast streams of gas are flowing across a gap in the disc of material around a young star. These are the first direct observations of such streams, which are expected to be created by giant planets guzzling gas as they grow. The result is published on 2 January 2013 in the journal Nature.

21 December 2012 - Organisation Release eso1253

All Systems Go for Highest Altitude Supercomputer — ALMA correlator turns many antennas into one giant telescope

One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world has now been fully installed and tested at its remote, high altitude site in the Andes of northern Chile. This marks one of the major remaining milestones toward completion of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the most elaborate ground-based telescope in history. The special-purpose ALMA correlator has over 134 million processors and performs up to 17 quadrillion operations per second, a speed comparable to the fastest general-purpose supercomputer in operation today.

19 December 2012 - Science Release eso1252

Stars Reveal the Secrets of Looking Young

Some people are in great shape at the age of 90, while others are decrepit before they’re 50. We know that how fast people age is only loosely linked to how old they actually are — and may have more to do with their lifestyle. A new study using both the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals that the same is true of star clusters.

12 December 2012 - Organisation Release eso1251

24-armed Giant to Probe Early Lives of Galaxies — KMOS successfully installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope

A powerful new instrument called KMOS has just been successfully tested on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. KMOS is unique as it will be able to observe not just one, but 24 objects at the same time in infrared light and study the structure simultaneously within each one. It will provide crucial data to help understand how galaxies grew and evolved in the early Universe — and provide it much faster than has been possible up to now. KMOS was built by a consortium of universities and institutes in the United Kingdom and Germany in collaboration with ESO.

6 December 2012 - Photo Release eso1250

Image of the Carina Nebula Marks Inauguration of VLT Survey Telescope

A spectacular new image of the star-forming Carina Nebula has been captured by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory and released on the occasion of the inauguration of the telescope in Naples today. This picture was taken with the help of Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, during his visit to the observatory on 5 June 2012.

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Announcements

4 Jan 2013 — ann13001 Café & Kosmos — G2: A cloud on its way to the black hole	20 Dec 2012 — ann12103 ESO Virtual Tours: 50th Anniversary Edition
18 Dec 2012 — ann12102 ESO Releases The Messenger No. 150	17 Dec 2012 — ann12101 Astronomers Around the World Meet to Share ALMA Observatory First Results — First Year of ALMA Science conference concludes in Puerto Varas, Chile
14 Dec 2012 — ann12100 Venus Transit Seen Reflected from the Moon	12 Dec 2012 — ann12099 ALMA Time-lapse Video Compilation Released
10 Dec 2012 — ann12098 ESO Chile Hosts International Conference on Physics and Astronomy	7 Dec 2012 — ann12097 President of Austria Visits ESO in Santiago
4 Dec 2012 — ann12096 ESO E-ELT Programme Confirmed — Additional commitments bring giant telescope closer	3 Dec 2012 — ann12095 Science in School Issue 25: Out Now!
3 Dec 2012 — ann12094 Bite-Size "Europe to the Stars" Movie Available Now	3 Dec 2012 — ann12093 New Video Compilation Released: Relocation of an ALMA Antenna

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