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ESO

ESO is the pre-eminent intergovernmental science and technology organisation in astronomy. It carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy to enable important scientific discoveries. ESO operates the La Silla Paranal Observatory at two sites in the Atacama desert region of Chile. La Silla, a 2400 m high mountain 600 km north of Santiago de Chile, is home to several telescopes in the 3.5-m range dedicated to high-profile long-term programmes. The flagship facility is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) atop the Paranal mountain, whose design, instrument complement and operating principles set the standard for ground-based optical and infrared astronomy. The VLT Interferometer (VLTI) enhances the capabilities of this unique facility even further as do the survey telescopes VST (optical) and VISTA (infrared). Publication statistics show that the VLT provides data for a scientific paper every day, all year round.

http://www.eso.org/
News articles associated with 'ESO' [chronologically, reverse order]

The rose-red glow of star formation

— 30 Mar 2011 16:31 | Astronomy

The object dominating this image may resemble a pool of spilled blood, but rather than being associated with death, such regions of ionised hydrogen - known as HII regions - are sites…

A very cool pair of brown dwarfs

— 28 Mar 2011 17:42 | Astronomy

Brown dwarfs are essentially failed stars: they lack enough mass for gravity to trigger the nuclear reactions that make stars shine. The newly discovered brown dwarf, identified as…

The drama of starbirth

— 16 Mar 2011 13:12 | Astronomy

The star-forming region NGC 6729 is part of one of the closest stellar nurseries to the Earth and hence one of the best studied. This new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope gives…

The most distant mature galaxy cluster

— 9 Mar 2011 20:20 | Astronomy

'We have measured the distance to the most distant mature cluster of galaxies ever found,' says the lead author of the study in which the observations from ESO's VLT have been used,…

The dusty disc of NGC 247

— 3 Mar 2011 12:35 | Astronomy

The spiral galaxy NGC 247 is one of the closest spiral galaxies of the southern sky. In this new view from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile large numbers…

Planet formation in action?

— 24 Feb 2011 20:11 | Astronomy

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope an international team of astronomers has been able to study the short-lived disc of material around a young star that is in the early stages of making…

Reflected glory

— 17 Feb 2011 17:06 | Astronomy

Messier 78 is a fine example of a reflection nebula. The ultraviolet radiation from the stars that illuminate it is not intense enough to ionise the gas to make it glow - its dust particles…

A picture-perfect pure-disc galaxy

— 2 Feb 2011 16:34 | Astronomy

NGC 3621 is a spiral galaxy about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be seen well in moderate-sized telescopes.…

The Orion nebula: Still full of surprises

— 19 Jan 2011 16:44 | Astronomy

The Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42, is one of the most easily recognisable and best-studied celestial objects. It is a huge complex of gas and dust where massive stars are forming…

VISTA stares deeply into the blue lagoon

— 5 Jan 2011 17:12 | Astronomy

This new infrared image of the Lagoon Nebula was captured as part of a five-year study of the Milky Way using ESO's VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. This is a small…

News articles associated with 'ESO' — 134
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