Persberichten

10 september 1997: In this continuing series of views from the ESO Paranal Observatory, most have been related to developments around the VLT telescopes and their enclosures. While this assembly work is very important and now rapidly progresses towards the crucial moment of First Light, other activities are also going on which will ensure the proper functioning of the small, isolated community at Paranal, in the middle of the extreme Atacama desert.

29 augustus 1997: Here are some recent photos from the installation of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Northern Chile.

12 augustus 1997: One more important step within the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) project has just been successfully accomplished. After a journey of more than 12,000 km, the enormous coating plant for the 8.2-m VLT Zerodur mirrors has just arrived safely at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert. Here it is now being installed in the Mirror Maintenance Building (MMB) , a large and complex structure that has been constructed next to the base camp, at the foot of the Paranal mountain.

8 augustus 1997: The installation of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama desert continues at good pace. As the moment of first light of the first 8.2-metre telescope is getting closer, the assembly of the enormous, 400-ton mechanical structure proceeds according to schedule.

1 augustus 1997: Observations of the bright southern quasar HE 2347-4342 with telescopes at the ESO La Silla Observatory and with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have provided a group of European astronomers [1] with an exceptional glimpse into an early, still unexplored transition period of the Universe.

25 juli 1997: About 20 cases of gravitationally lensed (GL) quasars are known. This special physical effect, also known as a cosmic mirage, occurs when the rays of light of a distant quasar on their way to us pass near a massive object, for instance a galaxy. As a result, two or more images of the same quasar will be seen near each other. This phenomenon is described in more detail in the Appendix. A new study by a group of three European astronomers, headed by Frederic Courbin ( Institut d'Astrophysique, Universite de Liege, Belgium, and Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France) [1], has led to the discovery of the object responsible for the double images of a remote quasar in the gravitational lens HE 1104-1805 . The investigation is based on infrared observations at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile and the `lensing system' turns out to be a distant, massive galaxy. Nevertheless, the geometry of the object is unusual and an additional gravitational lens of `dark' (invisible) matter may possibly be involved.

22 juli 1997: In the course of the major observational programme of asteroids by the Institute of Planetary Exploration of the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) [1] in Berlin, two of the staff astronomers, Stefano Mottola and Gerhard Hahn, have discovered a small satellite (moon) orbiting the asteroid (3671) Dionysus.

17 juli 1997: ESO Press Photo eso9717a shows a recent aerial view of the modernistic building of the ESO Headquarters in the town of Garching, some 15 kilometres north of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Germany.

17 juli 1997: The following seven photos are part of an extensive series that was obtained in mid-June 1997. The first three are aerial views which demonstrate the good progress of the extensive work at the top of the mountain where the four large enclosures for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes, the interferometric tunnel system and the control building are now steadily approaching completion.

17 juni 1997: On this photo, two major astronomical instruments equipped with state of the art infrared array detectors are seen undergoing final integration and testing at the Assembly Laboratory at the ESO Headquarters (Garching, Germany) prior to being shipped to the ESO observatories in Chile. It was obtained a few days after a visit to this laboratory by the ESO Council at the time of its June 1997 meeting in Garching.

11 juni 1997: This new and very detailed image of the famous circumstellar disk around the southern star Beta Pictoris was obtained with the ESO ADONIS adaptive optics system at the 3.6-m telescope and the Observatoire de Grenoble coronograph. It shows (in false colours) the scattered light at wavelength 1.25 micron (J band) and is one of the best images of this interesting feature obtained so far.

2 juni 1997: Hans Hermann Heyer, professional ESO photographer at the Education and Public Relations Department in Garching, has prepared a remarkable exhibition of 45 photographs he obtained during two visits to ESO-Chile in 1996. It is on display at the ESO Headquarters until July 10, 1997.

2 juni 1997: The installation of the ESO Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama desert is proceeding rapidly. The moment of first light of the first 8.2-metre telescope is getting closer and activities in Paranal and at the ESO Headquarters in Garching are becoming ever more intense.

16 mei 1997: In August 1995, the European Southern Observatory signed a contract with Linde A.G. (Germany), for the supply of the coating unit for the giant mirrors of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). Together with the main subcontractors, BOC coating technology (UK) , and Deggendorfer Werft (Germany), Linde has meanwhile completed the development, construction and pre-commissioning of the coating unit in Deggendorf, a town located at the Danube River, some 150 km northeast of Munich.

12 mei 1997: ESO Messenger no. 87 (March 1997) contains information (on Page 5) about the content of the Time Capsule, deposited by President Frei of the Republic of Chile on December 4, 1996, in the wall of VLT Enclosure no. 1. This capsule, an aluminium cylinder of 15 cm diameter and 45 centimeter long, was filled with nitrogen gas and sealed hermetically. A commemorative plaque was fixed in front of the cavity. In addition to the various items listed below, the capsule also contains a list of contents etched on a metal plate which will survive virtually indefinitely in this environment, while it cannot be excluded that the papers may deteriorate with time.

28 april 1997: Brown Dwarfs are star-like objects which are too small to become real stars, yet too large to be real planets. Their mass is too small to ignite those nuclear processes which are responsible for the large energies and high temperatures of stars, but it is much larger than that of the planets we know in our solar system. Until now, very few Brown Dwarfs have been securely identified as such. Two are members of double-star systems, and a few more are located deep within the Pleiades star cluster. Now, however, Maria Teresa Ruiz of the Astronomy Department at Universidad de Chile (Santiago de Chile), using telescopes at the ESO La Silla observatory, has just discovered one that is all alone and apparently quite near to us. Contrary to the others which are influenced by other objects in their immediate surroundings, this new Brown Dwarf is unaffected and will thus be a perfect object for further investigations that may finally allow us to better understand these very interesting celestial bodies. It has been suggested that Brown Dwarfs may constitute a substantial part of the unseen dark matter in our Galaxy. This discovery may therefore also have important implications for this highly relevant research area.

9 april 1997: Circumstellar disks of gas and dust play a crucial role in the formation of stars and planets. Until now, high-resolution images of such disks around young stars within the Orion Nebula obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) constituted the most direct proof of their existence. Now, another circumstellar disk has been detected around a star in the Lagoon Nebula - also known as Messier 8 (M8) , a giant complex of interstellar gas and dust with many young stars in the southern constellation of Sagittarius and four times more distant than the Orion Nebula. The observations were carried out by an international team of scientists led by Bringfried Stecklum (Thüringer Landessternwarte, Tautenburg, Germany) [1] who used telescopes located at the ESO La Silla observatory and also observations from the HST archive. These new results are paving the road towards exciting research programmes on star formation which will become possible with the ESO Very Large Telescope.

20 maart 1997: These photos show one of the three generating sets (08a/97 and 08b/97) that will constitute the electric power station of the ESO Paranal Observatory of the Very Large Telescope Observatory (VLT).

11 maart 1997: An international team of astronomers has used large telescopes in Chile and Australia to measure the biggest star in the sky. The star, designated R Doradus , is of the so-called red giant type and is located in the southern constellation of Dorado. Its apparent diameter (i.e., the size which the star appears to have when seen from the Earth) is larger than any other so far observed, except for the Sun. In particular, it exceeds by more than 30% that of Betelgeuse , which for the past 75 years has held the title of star with the largest apparent size.

5 maart 1997: In the afternoon of March 9, 1997, the Bavarian Prime Minister, Dr. Edmund Stoiber, on the invitation of the Director General of ESO, Professor Riccardo Giacconi, visited the ESO La Silla Observatory, located in an isolated area in the Atacama desert some 600 km north of the Chilean capital.