Skip to content

Search for:

Our Bloggers
Our Substack
Follow Us!
- Bluesky
- Threads
- FaceBook
- Google News
- Twitter/X
Contribute/Contact

ESO

On December 24th, AES Andes, a subsidiary of the US power company AES Corporation, submitted a project for a massive industrial complex for environmental impact assessment. This complex threatens the pristine skies above ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the darkest and clearest of any astronomical observatory in the world [1]. The industrial megaproject is planned to be located just 5 to 11 kilometres from telescopes at Paranal, which would cause irreparable damage to astronomical observations, in particular due to light pollution emitted throughout the project’s operational life. Relocating the complex would save one of Earth's last truly pristine dark skies.

World’s Darkest Observatory Under Threat from Massive Industrial Development

Categories Earth, Energy & Environment, Space

This image shows the galaxy REBELS-25 as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), overlaid on an infrared image of other stars and galaxies. The infrared image was taken by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). In a recent study, researchers found evidence that REBELS-25 is a strongly rotating disc galaxy existing only 700 million years after the Big Bang. This makes it the most distant and earliest known Milky Way-like galaxy found to date.

Rebel Star: Ancient Galaxy Defies Time, Dances Like the Milky Way

Categories Physics & Mathematics, Space

This artist’s impression shows Barnard b, a sub-Earth-mass planet that was discovered orbiting Barnard’s star. Its signal was detected with the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), and astronomers were able to confirm it with data from other instruments. An earlier promising detection in 2018 around the same star could not be confirmed by these data. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus but is too hot to support liquid water, a year lasts just over three Earth days.

Astronomers Discover Sub-Earth Planet Orbiting Closest Single Star to Our Sun

Categories Space

A galaxy suddenly became much brighter in late 2019. This reveals a giant black hole at its center that's woken up and started feeding on surrounding gas, making the whole galaxy light up. This is the first time scientists have observed this awakening happen.

Astronomers Witness a Massive Black Hole Awakening in Real-Time for the First Time

Categories Physics & Mathematics, Space

giant black hole against the darkness of space

Gaia Mission Discovers Monstrous Black Hole in the Milky Way

Categories Physics & Mathematics, Space

The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal site. This 1.5-billion pixel image spans an area in the sky of about 25 full Moons. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, illuminated by the young and hot stars within them.

New 1.5-billion-pixel image shows Running Chicken in unprecedented detail

Categories Space, Technology

This image shows Neptune observed with the MUSE instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). At each pixel within Neptune, MUSE splits the incoming light into its constituent colours or wavelengths. This is similar to obtaining images at thousands of different wavelengths all at once, which provides a wealth of valuable information to astronomers. The image to the right combines all colours captured by MUSE into a “natural” view of Neptune, where a dark spot can be seen to the upper-right. Then we see images at specific wavelengths: 551 nanometres (blue), 831 nm (green), and 848 nm (red); note that the colours are only indicative, for display purposes. The dark spot is most prominent at shorter (bluer) wavelengths. Right next to this dark spot MUSE also captured a small bright one, seen here only in the middle image at 831 nm and located deep in the atmosphere. This type of deep bright cloud had never been identified before on the planet. The images also show several other shallower bright spots towards the bottom-left edge of Neptune, seen at long wavelengths. Imaging Neptune’s dark spot from the ground was only possible thanks to the VLT’s Adaptive Optics Facility, which corrects the blur caused by atmospheric turbulence and allows MUSE to obtain crystal clear images. To better highlight the subtle dark and bright features on the planet, the astronomers carefully processed the MUSE data, obtaining what you see here.

Mysterious Neptune dark spot detected from Earth for the first time

Categories Space

Combined SPHERE and ALMA image of material orbiting V960 Mon

New image reveals secrets of planet birth

Categories Space

Neptune is cooler than you thought

Categories Space

Galactic fireworks: New images reveal stunning features of nearby galaxies

Categories Space

A Cosmic Mystery: ESO Telescope Captures the Disappearance of a Massive Star

Categories Physics & Mathematics, Space

Bloggers

Burning Seas: Science Poetry
Researchers combine citizens’ help and cutting-edge tech to track biodiversity
Science lifts the curtain on the history of European puppet theatre
Tangled Currents: Science Poetry
Infusions: Science Poetry
Braving the cold: Europe’s polar research strides forward with new polar hub
From brain maps to living bridges: the innovations set to reshape life in 2025

© 2025 ScienceBlog.com | Follow our RSS / XML feed