The ALMA Inauguration

As the BBC reported on Wednesday, having opened its eyes in 2011, and with 57 of its 66 antennas now ready to receive data on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Atacama desert, Chile, the Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) was officially inaugurated on March 13.  Here’s the associated ESOcast 55: The ALMA Inauguration. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Editing: Martin Kornmesser and Herbert Zodet. Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi Shida. Written by: Javier Perez Barbuzano and Herbert Zodet. Narration: Sara Mendes …

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“damn, what a sky…” – redux

[Image credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky]  Another stunning time-lapse video of the wondrous night sky above the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] array on top of Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert.  This time presented as ESO Cast 50: Chile Chill 1.  [Marvel at the solar system in motion… – Ed]  Or, indeed, the galaxy.  Stay with it past a relatively slow start for the best images. Video via Eso Observatory. Video Credit: ESO. Editing: Herbert Zodet. Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi …

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ALMA opens its eyes

As the BBC report, and see here also, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have released the first image obtained by their new telescope, the Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) – even though the array isn’t expected to be completed until 2013.  It’s the focus of the latest ESOcast 36 – ALMA opens its eyes. And here’s that image, of the colliding spiral Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039).  [Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)] A side-by-side comparison with a Very Large Telescope (VLT) image of …

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“Currently the number of exoplanets stands at close to 600…”

[Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser].  As the BBC reported, astronomers using the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6-metre telescope at the European Southern Observatory [ESO]’s La Silla Observatory in Chile recently announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, including sixteen super-Earths.  It’s the subject of ESOcast 35: 50 New Exoplanets. From the ESO science release In the eight years since it started surveying stars like the Sun using the radial velocity technique HARPS has been used to discover more …

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Most distant “angry monster” brightest in early Universe

[Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser] The BBC reports on the discovery of the most distant quasar yet seen, ULAS J1120+0641.  An “angry monster” 12.9 billion light-years away – a mere 770 million years after the Big Bang.  Before the process of re-ionization was completed.  As the BBC report notes The light from ULAS J1120+0641 displays the characteristic signature of neutral gas, indicating that, at 770 million years after the Big Bang, the process of re-ionization had some way to go before the process was …

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“damn, what a sky…”

[Image credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky] Clear skies are everything in visible-light astronomy, and they don’t come much clearer that the skies above the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] array on top of Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert.  As this amazing time-lapse video of the VLT in operation, by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado, shows.  There’s little I can say to prepare you for these wondrous images.  Simply stunning.  Via the Professor.  And via Popsci’s Clay Dillow, who warns “it …

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ESO’s VLT provides first 3-D image of supernova remnant

As the BBC notes, having already observed the most massive star ever discovered ESO’s Very Large Telescope array [VLT] in Chile has now provided the first 3-D image of a supernova remnant.  The first video is an artist’s impression of the material around recently exploded star, known as Supernova 1987A [SN 1987A]. Credit ESO/L. Calçada. From the ESO press release Unlike the Sun, which will die rather quietly, massive stars arriving at the end of their brief life explode as supernovae, hurling out …

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Of giant, and more modest, stars

The discovery of the most massive star ever observed makes the BBC’s, and other’s, headlines.  Identified by astronomers using a combination of new observations on ESO’s Very Large Telescope facility in Chile and data gathered previously with the Hubble Space Telescope, R136a1 has a mass about 265 times that of our own Sun.  Image credits ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans. It’s sited in a cluster known as RMC 136a, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away.  From the BBC report Many objects in the very first population of stars to shine …

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More telescopes…

As the BBC notes, for the first time astronomers have directly observed the orbit of an exo-planet – Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant about nine times the mass of Jupiter, some 60 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Pictar.  The team used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. [Image credit: ESO] Only 12 million years old, or less than three-thousandths of the age of the Sun, Beta Pictoris is 75% more massive than our parent …

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