Communiqués de presse

26 octobre 1999: The La Silla Observatory is located in the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of the driest and loneliest areas of the world. The land around this isolated peak was acquired in 1964 and following some years of construction work, the inauguration of ESO's first observatory took place just over 30 years ago, in March 1969. The solitude of this remote desert site is well illustrated by the above panorama, obtained in 1996.

13 octobre 1999: An international group of astronomers [1] has used the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal (Chile) to perform unique observations of an interstellar nebula in which stars are currently being born.

7 octobre 1999: The clip contains a full-scale computer animation of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) at the future site of this large astronomical facility.

5 octobre 1999: A major new astronomical instrument for the ESO Very Large Telescope at Paranal (Chile), the UVES high-resolution spectrograph, has just made its first observations of astronomical objects. The astronomers are delighted with the quality of the spectra obtained at this moment of "First Light". Although much fine-tuning still has to be done, this early success promises well for new and exciting science projects with this large European research facility.

17 septembre 1999: Work is progressing well at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) project, both at the Paranal Observatory and in Europe. Here is a brief summary with recent news from this major project, illustrated with photos from the construction.

18 août 1999: A team of European astronomers [1] has found a cold and extremely faint object in interstellar space, high above the galactic plane. It is a Methane Brown Dwarf of which only a few are known. This is by far the most distant one identified to date.

18 août 1999: This webpage provides information about the total eclipse on Wednesday, August 11, 1999, as it was seen by ESO staff, mostly at or near the ESO Headquarters in Garching (Bavaria, Germany). The zone of totality was about 108 km wide and the ESO HQ were located only 8 km south of the line of maximum totality. The duration of the phase of totality was about 2 min 17 sec.

13 août 1999: A computer-controlled "Active Optics" system was first developed at ESO in the 1980's. It allows the continuous tuning of the optical system of an astronomical telescope, thus ensuring that it always produces the sharpest possible images of astronomical objects. The first major telescope to profit from this revolution in telescope techniques was the ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the La Silla observatory. Since it began operation in 1990, 75 adjustable supports below the 3.58-m primary mirror, coupled with advanced image analysis and control software, have made this prototype telescope one of the best in the world. Each of the four ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescopes is equipped with the latest, improved active optics system that controls the primary 8.2-m Zerodur mirror as well as the secondary 1.1-m lightweight beryllium mirror at the top of the telescope structure. This system offers complete control of the optical quality, allowing the VLT to take full advantage of the exceptional atmospheric conditions at Paranal. This is amply confirmed by fine quality of the astronomical observations now performed with the first Unit Telescope, ANTU. In the course of the one-year commissioning period (May 1998 - March 1999), ESO's opticians performed extensive tests and further improvements of the active optics system at ANTU. Here are some interesting examples that illustrate the amazing versatility of this front-line technological system.

30 juillet 1999: When the first 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescope (ANTU) was "handed over" to the scientists on April 1, 1999, the first "visiting astronomers" at Paranal were George Miley and Huub Rottgering from the Leiden Observatory (The Netherlands) [1]. They obtained unique pictures of a distant exploding galaxy known as 1138 - 262. These images provide new information about how massive galaxies and clusters of galaxies may have formed in the early Universe.

29 juillet 1999: A new extrasolar planet has been found at the ESO La Silla Observatory as a companion to iota Horologii (iota Hor). This 5.4-mag solar-type star is located at a distance of 56 light-years and is just visible to the unaided eye in the southern constellation Horologium (The Pendulum Clock).

28 juillet 1999: The Paranal Observatory, site of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) , is a long way from anywhere. Located in the northern part of the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of the driest areas of the world, it is also the working place for about one-hundred ESO staff members, some from Chile and others from Europe. Paranal was an empty mountain when the construction of the ESO observatory began here in 1991. Since then, a small community has sprung up at this desolate site. A significant investment has been made here to establish the complex infrastructure that is needed to ensure the proper running of this high-tech research facility. Everything has to be trucked in, from water and food to telescope spare parts. Electricity is generated by several diesel motors that maintain a stable power supply to the sensitive astronomical instruments and also to all devices needed for a minimum of comfort for the staff and visitors. From the outset, they have been living in housing containers at the "Base Camp". The workers and engineers of the contracting firms have also been living in similar quarters across the main road that leads to the telescopes at the top of the mountain.

20 juillet 1999: ESO's new Very Large Telescope allows the discovery of a rather peculiar binary system, made up of two dwarf stars orbiting each other. The discovery provides new insights on the theory of stellar evolution.

14 juillet 1999: This video contains some scenes from ESO Video News Reel no. 7 - "Impressions from the ESO Solar Eclipse Expedition in 1994" that is being issued in anticipation of the upcoming solar eclipse on August 11, 1999, four weeks from today.

2 juillet 1999: Astronomers at ESO have recently been "Seeing the Light Through the Dark!" Some months ago, the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) observed a classical dark globule, Barnard 68 (B68) , in front of a dense star field in the Milky Way band. CCD images were obtained in various visual wavebands with the FORS1 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m VLT ANTU (UT1). They were combined into a colour photo.

29 juin 1999: One of the most famous comets is Hale-Bopp that passed near the Earth just over two years ago. It now moves out through the solar system, getting fainter with increasing distance. The estimated magnitude is now about 12.5 (visual), i.e. about 400 times fainter than what can be perceived with the unaided eye.

29 juin 1999: The launch in early 2003 of the Rosetta spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA), the 3rd "Cornerstone" mission of this organisation, will mark the beginning of an exciting scientific endeavour. Following two close passages by the Earth and another by Mars to gain speed, the complex 1.3-tonnes spacecraft will continue towards a rendez-vous with the icy nucleus of Comet Wirtanen [2], passing two asteroids on the way. Beginning in late 2011, at a time when the comet is close to its aphelion - the most distant point in its elongated orbit, about 770 million km from the Sun - the Rosetta "orbiter" will literally chase Comet Wirtanen for two years, sending back valuable data about the nucleus and its immediate environment. A "lander" will attach itself to this lump of frozen ice and dust, which is travelling through space at over 46,000 kilometres per hour, and analyse samples. A joint team from ESO and ESA's Space Science Department has proposed a short series of ground-based exploratory observations in support of this European space mission. Responding to the challenge, the second 8.2-m VLT telescope (KUEYEN), while undergoing commissioning at Paranal, has just performed a remarkable feat by observing the nucleus of Comet Wirtanen, now near its aphelion, i.e. at the location of the future Rosetta encounter. This is equivalent to viewing a pitch-black golfball, over 20,000 kilometres away!

22 juin 1999: The Wide Field Imager (WFI) , a 67-million pixel digital camera at the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory continues to produce remarkable images for astronomical research. At the same time, many of these are of great aesthetic value and provide impressive views into sky regions with unsual objects. Earlier this year, the WFI recorded a number of fields in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy, deep down in the southern sky. It is located at a distance of about 170,000 light-years and contains many nebulae and stellar clusters.Two colour composite photos of "H II regions" in the LMC are shown here, centred near N44 and N119 [1]. They are nebulae in which (some of) the gas is ionized, i.e. the atoms have lost one or more electrons by the action of energetic ultraviolet radiation emitted by very hot and luminous stars in this area. Both of these nebulae are seen in front of rich star fields in this galaxy in which there are also several stellar clusters.

21 juin 1999: The site at Cerro Paranal in the dry Atacama desert in Northern Chile is one of the best locations for astronomical observations from the surface of the Earth. Each of the four 8.2-m telescopes is a technological marvel with self-adjusting optics placed in a gigantic mechanical structure of the utmost precision, continuously controlled by advanced soft- and hardware. A multitude of extremely complex instruments with sensitive detectors capture the faint light from distant objects in the Universe and record the digital data fast and efficiently as images and spectra, with a minimum of induced noise. And now the next crucial link in this chain is in place. A few nights ago, following an extended test period, the VLT Data Flow System began providing the astronomers with a steady stream of high-quality, calibrated image and spectral data, ready to be interpreted. The VLT project has entered into a new phase with a larger degree of automation. Indeed, the first 8.2-m Unit Telescope, ANTU, with the FORS1 and ISAAC instruments, has now become a true astronomy machine.

10 juin 1999: Representatives from the U.S. and Europe signed an agreement today in Washington to continue collaboration on the first phase of a giant new telescope project. The telescope will image the Universe with unprecedented sensitivity and sharpness at millimeter wavelengths (between the radio and infrared spectral regions). It will be a major step for astronomy, making it possible to study the origins of galaxies, stars and planets. A Joint Press Release by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO)

10 juin 1999: The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is the new name [2] for a giant millimeter-wavelength telescope project. As described in the accompanying joint press release by ESO and the U.S. National Science Foundation , the present design and development phase is now a Europe-U.S. collaboration, and may soon include Japan. ALMA may become the largest ground-based astronomy project of the next decade after VLT/VLTI, and one of the major new facilities for world astronomy. ALMA will make it possible to study the origins of galaxies, stars and planets.