Announcements 2016

22 December 2016: Interest in our neighbouring Alpha Centauri star system has been particularly high since the recent discovery of an Earth-mass planet, known as Proxima b, orbiting the system’s third star — and the closest star to the Sun — Proxima Centauri. While the system’s larger stellar pair, Alpha Centauri A and B, appear to have a proper motion on the sky that is very similar to that of the smaller, fainter Proxima Centauri, it has not been possible to demonstrate that the three stars do actually form a single, gravitationally bound, triple system. Now three astronomers, Pierre Kervella, Frédéric Thévenin and Christophe Lovis, have concluded that the three stars do indeed form a bound system. In the century since it was discovered, Proxima Centauri’s faintness has made it extremely difficult to reliably measure its radial velocity — the speed at which it moves towards and away from Earth. But now ESO’s ...

20 December 2016: The latest edition of ESO's quarterly journal, The Messenger, is now available online. Find out the latest news from ESO on topics ranging from new instruments to the latest science discoveries. Highlights of this edition include: Reaching New Heights in Astronomy — ESO Long Term Perspectives VLT/VLTI Second-Generation Instrumentation: Lessons Learned Science-Grade Imaging Data for HAWK-I, VIMOS, and VIRCAM: The ESO–UK Pipeline Collaboration A Deep ALMA Image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field First ALMA Detection of a Galaxy Cluster Merger Shock Download The Messenger in PDF format or visit The Messenger website to subscribe and receive a free printed copy. This product is also available in the ESOshop.

19 December 2016: The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Great Websites for Kids (GWS) has selected Space Scoop as one of the ten best websites for young children up to 14 years of age. ALSC is a division of the American Library Association (ALA) and the selection of the Great Websites for Kids by the GWS committee takes place three times a year. ESO is delighted to be one of the partner research institutes that provide content for Space Scoop, alongside ESA, NASA Chandra, the Las Cumbres Observatory and others. The Space Scoop website was launched one year ago as part of the European Commission-funded EU Universe Awareness and EU Space Awareness projects. Every week it brings the latest astronomy news in a form suitable for children and their teachers, to educate and to inspire. Space Scoops are published in digital and print form, as well as via a mobile app, ...

15 December 2016: For nearly eight years, the VIsible MultiObject Spectrograph (VIMOS) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has been piecing together a three-dimensional map of galaxies in two patches of the southern sky. A total of 440 hours of observing time has gone into measuring the spectra of more than 90 000 distant galaxies, producing a map of a 24-square-degree region on the sky, out to a distance corresponding to when the Universe was around half its current age [1]. In 2013, ESO reported that the international team of astronomers behind the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Survey (VIPERS) had collected data for around 60% of their target galaxies. With the full set of observations now completed, this is the largest redshift survey ever undertaken with ESO telescopes [2] and it provides a view of structures in the younger Universe with an unprecedented combination of detail and spatial extent. By surveying how ...

15 December 2016: The 21st issue of the Communicating Astronomy with the Public journal is out now! In this issue our contributors outline a summer programme in astronomy for high-school students; evaluate a massive open online class in astronomy; provide essential tips on how to write a successful press release; and describe astronomy communication at its most informal — a growing programme of astronomy events held in bars. All of this, and more, is featured in this free, peer-reviewed journal for astronomy communicators — available now for download. This product will also be available from the ESO shop.

6 December 2016: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in printed form. This European journal for science teachers offers inspiring articles and hands-on activities for students in every issue. It aims to promote science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists and everyone else involved in European science education. Some of the highlights of this issue include: Blended senses: understanding synaesthesia; Under pressure: the role of Earth’s mantle in our climate; an interview with Andy Brunning, the mastermind behind Compound Interest; and a report on the European CanSat Competition 2016. Practical teaching activities for the classroom include: a primary school activity where pupils can “Be a magnet for the day”; Wind and rain: meteorology in the classroom for physics students; and Chembot: chemistry with robots. Science in School is published by EIROforum, a collaboration between eight European intergovernmental scientific research organisations, of which ESO ...

29 November 2016: The prestigious De Zeeuw-Van Dishoeck Graduation Prize for Astronomy is awarded every year to the best Master's thesis on the subject of astronomy by a Dutch student. The prize aims to encourage young talent in the field of astronomy; a certificate and a cash prize of 3000 euros are awarded to the winner. This year’s prize is awarded to Jakob van den Eijnden of the University of Amsterdam, for his thesis entitled “Probing the short-timescale evolution of quasi-periodic oscillations”. Named after ESO Director General, Tim De Zeeuw and Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Theoretical Astronomy and Professor of Molecular Astrophysics at the University of Leiden, the prize is awarded by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW).

29 November 2016: Soaring through the cloudless Chilean sky might seem like something from a dream, but this ESOcast allows you to do just that. Incredible aerial photography of ESO’s facilities in Chile provides a new perspective on the world’s most productive astronomical observatories, showcasing their engineering ingenuity and spectacular surroundings from a whole new angle. The journey takes in several of ESO’s observatory sites, at La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor, and also includes Cerro Armazones — the site for the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope. The thin air at the extreme altitude of these observatories allows for stunning, crystal-clear vistas of the Atacama Desert for many miles around. Of course, the reason these telescopes are there at all is because of the dazzling show the Chilean sky provides almost every night. Timelapses of the cosmos show some of the most incredible phenomena the Universe has to offer dancing around above. You can ...

14 November 2016: The awards ceremony for the 2016 Photo Nightscape Awards — organised by Association Française d'Astronomie — was held on 12 November, at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris. Thierry Botti, ESO Science Outreach Network representative in France, was present at the ceremony to congratulate the participants and offer a prize on behalf of ESO consisting of a trip to the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Over 400 photographs and timelapses from more than 45 countries were submitted for this year’s competition, from which the eight winners were chosen. Lars Lindberg Christensen, Head of ESO’s education and Public Outreach Department, was one of the jury members who selected the winners. Prizes were awarded to the first and second places in each of three categories: Nightscape, In Town, and Timelapse, with two further awards in the Junior category. The first prize in the Nightscape category went to Luc Perrot ...

9 November 2016: On 29 and 30 May 2017, ESO will host a workshop entitled Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures II — Communicating the Importance of Science to Society. The workshop, organised jointly by the Association of European-level Research Infrastructure Facilities (ERF-AISBL), the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), and the EIROforum, will take place at ESO’s Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany. The importance of science in society cannot be underestimated, and effective communication between scientists and the general public is absolutely crucial. Efforts to share the results of exciting and groundbreaking science with a wide audience have seen great successes, resulting in a more curious and engaged public. The workshop will be a hands-on forum for communications officers and public-relations staff from major research institutions, providing them with an opportunity to share their experience and expertise. The topics that will be addressed include: the evaluation of communication activities and impact; unconventional outreach: thinking outside ...

4 November 2016: More than 180 video applications from 25 countries were submitted for the 2016 ESO Astronomy Camp and the winners of the bursaries offered by ESO and the national partners have now been selected. The standard of applications was extremely high this year, with a variety of highly enthusiastic future scientists and engineers keen to gain a place at this year’s camp. ESO is delighted to announce that Lucia Mendes Cucchieri from Brazil is the winner of the ESO bursary. The ESO bursary covers the full cost of the camp and the associated travel for the student. The following students will also receive financial support from the national partners: From the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Leuven, Belgium, support for Lara Delbroek From the Stellar Astrophysics Centre at Aarhus University, Denmark, support for Jesper Holm and Sebastian Stangegaard From the German Astronomical Society, Germany, support for Malin Moll From ...

28 October 2016: A major milestone has been reached in the project to transform Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun) of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) into a fully adaptive telescope, with the installation of a deformable secondary mirror on the telescope. Adaptive Optics systems compensate for the blurring effect of the Earth’s atmosphere that degrades the sharpness of images that can be obtained with a telescope — even a very large and sophisticated one like the VLT. The installation of the new Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) as an integral part of UT4 will enable the telescope to obtain even sharper images. The deformable secondary mirror consists of a 1.96 mm-thick flexible mirror sitting on a mount that holds 1170 actuators which change the shape of the mirror to correct for the effect of turbulence in the atmosphere. At just over one metre in diameter, this is the largest adaptive optics mirror ever produced. The ...

27 October 2016: In March 2016, the “Fulldome Expedition” gathered breathtaking visuals for the forthcoming ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre, which will open in late 2017 in Garching near Munich, Germany. The team, composed of photographer Yuri Beletsky, ESO photo ambassadors Petr Horalek and Babak Tafreshi — accompanied by the pioneer of ultrafast planetarium cinematography, Theofanis Matsopoulos — ventured out to ESO’s world-leading observatories in Chile’s Atacama desert. This ESOcast tells the story of their visit and shares some of the remarkable images they brought back. The Fulldome Expedition brought back a wide range of beautiful visuals, having captured thousands of stills and videos of the crystal clear Chilean night sky. Members of the public who come to ESO’s Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre will be able to enjoy the spoils of this venture for years to come. As the world’s first open-source planetarium, all of the visuals obtained on this Expedition, ...

25 October 2016: High up in the Atacama Desert in Chile, ESO’s Paranal Observatory has welcomed a very special guest. Former President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, visited the Paranal facilities, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT), on 21 and 22 October 2016. Prior to that, on 20 October, Ms. Halonen paid a visit to the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO), after delivering a talk at CEPAL (the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) on the global situation of women in the 21st Century. During her visit to the JAO she met women scientists and engineers working at ALMA and ESO and was given a presentation about the ALMA residence, which is nearing completion and is based on a design by Finnish architects. Finland became the eleventh member state of the European Southern Observatory in 2004, during Ms. Halonen’s presidency. Since then, ESO has benefitted from the frontline scientific expertise for which the ...

20 October 2016: A very rare gravitational lensing event, set to occur in 2028, has been predicted by a team of French astronomers led by Pierre Kervella of the CNRS/Universidad de Chile. It will provide an ideal opportunity to look for evidence of a planet around a nearby star. Using both new and archive data obtained with a range of ESO telescopes [1], the team has predicted the trajectories of the fast-moving stellar duo known as the Alpha Centauri A and B, with negligible error. That has allowed them to predict every close alignment until 2050 between the Alpha Centauri pair and the stars which lie close to them on the sky — but which are in fact a great deal further away in space [2]. Whilst it is satisfying to see into the future with such impressive accuracy, that is not the real prize in these results; they provide a unique opportunity ...

20 October 2016: New high-definition cameras have been installed at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). They will provide improved 24/7 interactive views of these two flagship observatories in Chile and will complement ESO’s suite of existing live webcam views.. The new cameras provide a live 360-degree view of the activities at the observatories throughout the year and can be used interactively to explore the site in all directions in exquisite detail. In addition, there are several high-resolution “points of interest”, which include a dedicated feed of the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile — the site of the new European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) — to document the construction of the world’s largest optical telescope, scheduled for completion in 2024. Also shown are the operations of the smaller Auxiliary Telescopes at Paranal, and, on very clear days, the Llullaillaco volcano can be seen, at a distance ...

17 October 2016: For the first time, starlight from one of the Unit Telescopes (UT) that make up ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has been successfully channelled 60 metres along a tunnel leading to a new focus in the underground laboratory beneath the VLT platform. When the system is fully operational, light from all four UTs will be brought to this “convergence point”, where the ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) high resolution spectrograph will be placed in 2017, collecting and analysing the combined light from the individual telescopes. In this way, the UTs, each of which has a diameter of 8 metres, will together equal the light collecting power of a telescope with a diameter of 16 metres. It will also be possible to use ESPRESSO with just one of the UTs, whenever all four are not needed. To get the light from the telescope to the new ...

17 October 2016: In May 2014 Olivier Chesneau, one of the most active and prolific members of the optical interferometry community, passed away at the age of 41. To honour his work in this field, his home institute, the Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France and ESO established a prize in his memory. The prize is awarded biennially — the first time was in 2015 — for the best thesis completed by a PhD student in the past two calendar years in the field of high angular resolution optical astronomy at a European institution. This includes adaptive optics, optical interferometry and similar techniques. Nominations for the prize must be received by 15 January 2017 at https://olivier-chesneau.oca.eu, where full details about the prize rules are available. The result will be announced in March 2017. The winner of the prize will be invited to give a prize lecture during ...

17 October 2016: ESO, the world’s most productive ground-based observatory, will open its doors to the public on Saturday 22 October 2016 between 11:00 and 18:00 CEST. The event will be held at ESO’s Headquarters in Garching, near Munich, Germany. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience the world of ESO first hand by taking part in many different activities. The programme of activities for the day is now available. Our Open House Day is part of the Tag der offenen Tür that is taking place across the Garching research campus, as well as at several other local institutes. If you need help to find your way during the Open House Day, look for our members of staff, who are wearing name badges. As ESO is an international organisation, we have staff speaking several languages. Media representatives who wish to attend the event are asked to confirm their participation by contacting osandu@partner.eso.org. List ...

11 October 2016: Nine years ago, ESO uploaded its first video to YouTube, about the discovery of the first Earth-like world in the habitable zone of a distant star. It seems fitting then that a recent set of videos about the groundbreaking discovery of another Earth-like world, this time around our closest stellar neighbour Proxima Centauri, have helped boost the ESO channel’s view count to five million. Since 2007, nearly 500 videos have been uploaded to the channel, all sharing incredible astronomical news, discoveries and observations with the world, helping to spread knowledge about our Universe and inspire people. 87 ESOcasts, hundreds of interviews and observations, and countless stunning artists’ renderings have contributed to this milestone. The team at ESO would like to thank all their friends and supporters for watching, discussing and sharing the channel’s videos. We will continue to provide high-quality content for the channel and hope you will continue to ...