Related topics: stars

Metal scar found on cannibal star

When a star like our sun reaches the end of its life, it can ingest the surrounding planets and asteroids that were born with it. Now, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) in Chile, researchers ...

Astronomers discover an unusually low-density super-Earth

An international team of astronomers reports the detection of a new "super-Earth" exoplanet using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The newfound alien world, designated TOI-244 b, turns out to have an unusually ...

Astrophysicists discover the perfect explosion in space

When neutron stars collide they produce an explosion that is, contrary to what was believed until recently, shaped like a perfect sphere. Although how this is possible is still a mystery, the discovery may provide a new key ...

Oldest planetary debris in our galaxy found in new study

Astronomers led by the University of Warwick have identified the oldest star in our galaxy that is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals, making it one of the oldest rocky and icy planetary systems discovered in the ...

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European Southern Observatory

The European Southern Observatory (ESO, whose official name is the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere), is an intergovernmental research organization for astronomy, composed and supported by fourteen countries from Europe. Created in 1962, to provide state-of-the-art facilities and access to the Southern Sky to European astronomers, it is famous for building and operating some of the largest and most technologically advanced telescopes in the world, such as the New Technology Telescope (NTT), the telescope that pioneered active optics technology, and the VLT (Very Large Telescope), consisting of four 8-meter class telescopes and four 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes.

Its numerous observing facilities have made many astronomical discoveries, and produced several astronomical catalogues. Among the more recent discoveries is the discovery of the farthest gamma-ray burst and the evidence for a black hole at the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. In 2004, the VLT allowed astronomers to obtain the first picture of an extrasolar planet, 2M1207b, orbiting a brown dwarf 173 light-years away. The HARPS spectrograph led to the discoveries of many other extrasolar planet, including a 5 earth mass planet around a red dwarf, Gliese 581c. The VLT has also discovered the candidate farthest galaxy ever seen by humans, Abell 1835 IR1916.

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