December 2011
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Ice Hunters Data is almost Done! →
Exciting news! Ice Hunters data is due to be completed very soon.
Check out the full story on the Ice Hunters Zooniverse blog.
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Inside Euler's Head — Or how to see a telescope...
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As night was falling over ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile on 20 December 2009, the sky was not yet dark enough for the telescopes to start observations. But conditions were perfect to perform a clever trick with the dome of the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope: allowing us to peer inside with this photograph apparently taken through the dome.
This image is a...
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Faint Galaxy with Popping Pink Features
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a region of space containing the intriguing object IC 2574. Pink bubbles blown by supernova explosions abound in this faint galaxy. The colour of these shells comes from hydrogen gas irradiated by newborn stars. The formation of the stars was triggered by shock waves from earlier supernova detonations that compressed material...
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!
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Christmas Comet Lovejoy Captured at Paranal
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The recently discovered Comet Lovejoy has been captured in stunning photos and time-lapse video taken from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The comet graced the southern sky after it had unexpectedly survived a close encounter with the Sun.
A new time-lapse video sequence was taken by Gabriel Brammer from ESO less than two days ago on 22 December 2011. Gabriel was...
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WISE Presents a Cosmic Wreath
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission presents the “Wreath nebula.” Though this isn’t the nebula’s official name (it’s actually called Barnard 3, or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5), one might picture a wreath in these bright green and red dust clouds — a ring of evergreens donned with a festive red bow, a jaunty sprig of holly, and silver...
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NASA Telescopes Help Find Rare Galaxy at Dawn of...
This image shows one of the most distant galaxies known, called GN-108036, dating back to 750 million years after the Big Bang that created our universe. The galaxy’s light took 12.9 billion years to reach us. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/University of Tokyo › Full image and caption
December 21, 2011
Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have ...
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BBC News - New particle identified at LHC →
The LHC has observed a new boson, one of the particles that carry the forces of nature.
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NASA Discovers First Earth-Size Planets Beyond Our...
This chart compares the first Earth-size planets found around a sun-like star to planets in our own solar system, Earth and Venus. Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech › Full image and caption
December 20, 2011
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and...
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Radar in Mars Orbit Maps North Polar Deposits
The upper panel is a radargram profile from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), showing data from the subsurface of Mars in the ice-rich north polar plateau of Mars. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Rome/ASI/GSFC › Full image and caption
December 19, 2011
A ground-penetrating radar instrument that NASA helped develop for the European Space...
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Zooniverse reaches half a million registered... →
The Zooniverse has reached a massive 500,000 users. This is a great acheivement for one of the best citizen science projects around.
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Llullaillaco, Clear as Day
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Bathed in the pristine light of the Chilean Atacama Desert, the ESO VLT’s Auxiliary Telescope 2 stands on Cerro Paranal. It is one of four that are used with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. During the day, its bulbous dome is closed, protecting the sensitive telescope within.
The magnificent 6739-metre volcano Llullaillaco stands proudly in the background of this...
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Hubble Captures a “Lucky” Galaxy Alignment
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An interesting galaxy has been circled in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy — one of a group of galaxies called Luminous Red Galaxies — has an unusually large mass, containing about ten times the mass of the Milky Way. However, it’s actually the blue horseshoe shape that circumscribes the red galaxy that is the real prize in this image. This blue...
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A Galaxy Blooming with New Stars
VLT Survey Telescope snaps wide-field view of NGC 253
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The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) has captured the beauty of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 253. The new portrait is probably the most detailed wide-field view of this object and its surroundings ever taken. It demonstrates that the VST, the newest telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, provides broad views of the sky...
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A Black Hole's Dinner is Fast Approaching
VLT spots cloud being disrupted by black hole
14 December 2011
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Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered a gas cloud with several times the mass of the Earth accelerating fast towards the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. This is the first time ever that the approach of such a doomed cloud to a supermassive black hole has been observed. The results...
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BBC News - Higgs boson 'glimpsed' at Large Hadron... →
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ALMA's World At Night
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This panoramic view of the Chajnantor plateau, spanning about 180 degrees from north (on the left) to south (on the right) shows the antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) ranged across the unearthly landscape. Some familiar celestial objects can be seen in the night sky behind them. These crystal-clear night skies explain why Chile is the home...
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Standing out from the Crowd
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The compact nature of globular clusters is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, having so many stars of a similar age in one bundle gives astronomers insights into the chemical makeup of our galaxy in its early history. But, at the same time, the high density of stars in the cores of globulars also makes it difficult for astronomers to resolve individual stars.
The core...
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Vampire Star Reveals its Secrets
eso1148 — Science Release
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Astronomers have obtained the best images ever of a star that has lost most of its material to a vampire companion. By combining the light captured by four telescopes at ESO’s Paranal Observatory they created a virtual telescope 130 metres across with vision 50 times sharper than the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Surprisingly, the new results show...
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VLT Finds Fastest Rotating Star
eso1147 — Science Release
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ESO’s Very Large Telescope has picked up the fastest rotating star found so far. This massive bright young star lies in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160 000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers think that it may have had a violent past and has been ejected from a double star system by its exploding companion.
An...
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The VLT’s Next-generation Laser Launch Telescope
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This telescope is an important new component of the Four Laser Guide Star Facility, which will sharpen the already excellent vision of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Four powerful 20-watt lasers, fired to an altitude of 90 kilometres up in the atmosphere, will help the VLT correct the image distortion caused by turbulence in the air. The Netherlands Organisation for...
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The Frosty Leo Nebula
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Three thousand light-years from Earth lies the strange protoplanetary nebula IRAS 09371+1212, nicknamed the Frosty Leo Nebula. Despite their name, protoplanetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets: they are formed from material shed from their aging central star. The Frosty Leo Nebula has acquired its curious name as it has been found to be rich in water in the form of...
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