ESO
First Solid Evidence for a Rocky Exoplanet (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The longest set of HARPS measurements ever made has firmly established the nature of the smallest and fastest-orbiting exoplanet known, CoRoT-7b, revealing its mass as five times that of Earth's. ...
Sep 16, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (14) |
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Astronomers unveil an amazing, interactive, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire night sky
(PhysOrg.com) -- The first of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project — a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO's observing sites in Chile — has just been released ...
Sep 14, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
2
NGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant Cousin
(PhysOrg.com) -- ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy is seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945 suggest ...
Sep 02, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
2
Trifid triple threat
Smouldering several thousand light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star's life, from gestation to first ...
Aug 26, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (5) |
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A Look into the Hellish Cradles of Suns and Solar Systems
The dense star cluster RCW 38 glistens about 5500 light years away in the direction of the constellation Vela (the Sails). Like the Orion Nebula Cluster, RCW 38 is an "embedded cluster", in that the nascent ...
Aug 19, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (6) |
1
Double engine for a nebula
(PhysOrg.com) -- The new image, showing a very rich field of stars towards the Carina arm of the Milky Way, is centred on the star HD 87643, a member of the exotic class of B[e] stars [1]. It is part of a ...
Aug 05, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
8
Sharpest views of Betelgeuse reveal how supergiant stars lose mass
(PhysOrg.com) -- Betelgeuse -- the second brightest star in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) -- is a red supergiant, one of the biggest stars known, and almost 1000 times larger than our Sun. It is ...
Jul 29, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (33) |
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An Eagle of Cosmic Proportions
(PhysOrg.com) -- Today ESO has released a new and stunning image of the sky around the Eagle Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant star clusters carve out monster columns of dust and gas.
Jul 16, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (9) |
1
New portrait of Omega Nebula's glistening watercolors
The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). An active star-forming region of ...
Jul 07, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (5) |
2
Astronomer's new guide to the galaxy: Largest map of cold dust revealed
This new guide for astronomers, known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) shows the Milky Way in submillimetre-wavelength light (between infrared light and radio waves). Images ...
Jul 01, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
1
Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators caught in the act
Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way's particle ...
Jun 25, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (12) |
16
World's fastest and most sensitive astronomical camera
The next generation of instruments for ground-based telescopes took a leap forward with the development of a new ultra-fast camera that can take 1,500 finely exposed images per second even when observing extremely ...
Jun 18, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (12) |
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Stellar family in crowded, violent neighborhood proves to be surprisingly normal
The massive Arches Cluster is a rather peculiar star cluster. It is located 25 000 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), and contains about a thousand young, massive stars, ...
Jun 04, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (6) |
1
Most efficient spectrograph to shoot the Southern skies
ESO's Very Large Telescope, Europe's flagship facility for ground-based astronomy, has been equipped with the first of its second generation instruments: X-shooter. It can record the entire spectrum of a celestial ...
May 26, 2009 |
5 / 5 (5) |
2
Giant galaxy Messier 87 finally sized up
The new observations reveal that Messier 87's halo of stars has been cut short, with a diameter of about a million light-years, significantly smaller than expected, despite being about three times the extent ...
May 20, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (8) |
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