Zdjęcie tygodnia

29 sierpnia 2022: This Picture of the Week shows an infrared view of Sagittarius B1, a region close to the centre of the Milky Way, imaged with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The centre of our galaxy is an exotic environment, densely populated with stars, and has been suggested to have more star formation than any other place in the Milky Way. But so far we have only found less than 10% of all young stars we expect there. Where are the others? There is a catch: our view towards the centre is obscured by clouds of dust and gas, blocking the light from the stars. With infrared instruments it is possible to peer through these clouds. In this image, taken with the infrared HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s VLT, we get to take a closer look at this region. The view is mesmerising, unveiling a myriad of stars. In a recent ...

22 sierpnia 2022: This picture of the week, taken from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows bright red streaks known as red sprites. These are an elusive form of lightning that occurs well-above storm clouds, discharging electricity high up in Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of 50-90km. In addition to occurring much higher in the sky than regular lightning, they are cooler than the white lightning we usually see and appear much fainter. Red sprites are very difficult to catch: the first photographic evidence for them was only taken in 1989. Seemingly painted across the background of the photograph is a green hue, known as airglow. During the day, sunlight knocks electrons away from nitrogen and oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere and, at night, these electrons recombine with the atoms and molecules, causing them to shine. Usually, airglow can only be seen in very dark skies where there is no light pollution. This ...

15 sierpnia 2022: Cerro Armazones, in Chile's Atacama Desert, is the site of ESO’s upcoming giant, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). In this image, we see the road leading up to this 3000m-high mountain, and in the distance, ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The lasers of the VLT reach towards the sky, parallel to the Milky Way. Cerro Armazones was actually the first suggested site for the VLT, and now the mountain will finally get a telescope of its own. Working at high altitude is not easy, but Cerro Armazones is both dry and has almost no artificial light pollution, making it a perfect site with excellent conditions for the world’s biggest eye on the sky. In this picture we see a red shimmer illuminating the dark sky, a natural phenomenon called airglow. With an anticipated first light later this decade, and equipped with a range of scientific instruments, the ELT will be ...

8 sierpnia 2022: This Picture of the Week shows a stunning view of the Milky Way as it stretches over the Atacama Desert, home to ESO’s Paranal Observatory. In the foreground, we also get a glimpse of the planet hunter NGTS, the Next Generation Transit Survey. NGTS, built by a collaboration of UK, Swiss and German institutions, consists of 12 telescopes that continuously monitor the sky, looking for dips in the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars. As an exoplanet transits between its host star and us, it dims the light reaching us, which can be picked up by NGTS. The survey specialises in looking for super-Earths, exoplanets more massive than our home planet but lighter than an ice giant like Neptune. NGTS also works in tandem with ESO telescopes, like the ones visible in the background: the Very Large Telescope (VLT, with its adaptive optics lasers) and the Visible and Infrared ...

1 sierpnia 2022: This week, we feature an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4303, also known as Messier 61, which is one of the largest galactic members of the Virgo Cluster. Being a so-called starburst galaxy, it has an unusually high amount of stars being born, and has been used by astronomers as a laboratory to better understand the fascinating phenomena of star formation. Stars form when clouds of cold gas collapse. The energetic radiation from newly born stars will heat and ionise the surrounding remaining gas. The ionised gas will shine, acting as a beacon of ongoing star formation. In this stunning and jewel-like image, this glowing gas can be seen as the whirlpool of gold: the direct traces of stars being born. The golden glow is a result of combining observations taken at different wavelengths of light with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) ...

25 lipca 2022: Gazing up at the stars from the Chilean Atacama Desert is the newest addition to ESO’s La Silla Observatory: BlackGEM, an array of optical telescopes established to detect the sources of gravitational waves using visible light. While not present when this image was taken, a third dome has now been installed in the rightmost pillar. In partnership with observatories such as EGO-Virgo and LIGO, BlackGEM will search for some of the most dramatic events in the universe, including the collision of black holes and neutron stars. These events cause ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves that detectors such as Virgo and LIGO can identify. BlackGEM is then able to pinpoint their location by searching the sky for short-lived astronomical events such as optical sources that appear or disappear within a single night. After BlackGEM has finished its measurements, other telescopes such as ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) can make ...

18 lipca 2022: The 3.6-metre telescope, located at the La Silla Observatory, is truly ESO’s golden oldie. Having achieved first light in 1976, it is one of the oldest ESO telescopes still in use, and it is continuously upgraded to match the latest technology. This Picture of the Week shows a fish-eye view of the dome where the telescope sits, as stars rotate above it around the Southern celestial pole. ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope is located in the larger dome to the left of the above photograph and, today, astronomers use it to search for exoplanets. Since 2008, the telescope has been home to the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher instrument (HARPS) which was joined by the Near InfraRed Planet Searcher (NIRPS) in June this year. As the world’s foremost exoplanet specialists, HARPS, NIRPS and the 3.6-metre make a splendid team for making exciting new discoveries about distant worlds. The smaller dome used ...

11 lipca 2022: This photo shows a peaceful night above ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Most striking is the bright reddish spot in the centre-left of the sky: Mars. Silhouetted against the starry sky is ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), on the hill to the right. We can see the domes of the four 8.2-m Unit Telescopes, as well as the smaller VLT Survey Telescope at the right edge of the hill. Speaking of Mars, did you know that the landscape around Paranal looks uncannily martian? So much so that the European Space Agency sometimes sends prototype rovers to simulate missions in a realistic environment.

4 lipca 2022: The Eta Aquariids meteor shower, which peaked in early May this year, was captured in this stunning image by astrophotographer Petr Horálek. It was taken near San Pedro de Atacama, a Chilean town about 50 km away from the Chajnantor observatory site, where APEX and ALMA, astronomical facilities co-owned by ESO, are located. The Eta Aquariids meteors are caused by leftover debris from Halley’s comet and make up the bright, arrow-like darts of light in the photo. But don’t stop there: this image is literally full to the brim of astronomical phenomena. The luminous object towards the bottom of the sky is Venus. Above it, arranged in a satisfying line, are several planets in conjunction. Directly above Venus is Jupiter, followed by the bright red Mars, and then Saturn. Conjunctions such as this are rare, often occurring decades apart. The planets also trace the zodiacal light, the faint glow stretching ...

27 czerwca 2022: Located on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, 600 km north of Santiago and at an altitude of 2400 metres, this seemingly tiny village in the middle of a desert is in fact ESO’s first observatory, the La Silla Observatory. The many astronomical facilities hosted at La Silla include ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope and ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), as well as several national telescopes, such as ExTrA or the Danish 1.54-metre telescope. The 3.6-metre telescope started operations in 1977. It is home to the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), a powerful exoplanet hunter that discovered Proxima b — an Earth-mass rocky planet orbiting our closest neighbouring star after the Sun. Inaugurated in 1989, the NTT constituted a major milestone in the field of active optics, a technique that adjusts the shape of a telescope’s mirror against distortions caused by the weight of the mirror itself. Using technology ...

20 czerwca 2022: You may be wondering where this picture of the week was taken, perhaps inside an engineering workshop or a construction zone? Actually, this photo shows inside one of the domes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT)! Inside the photo are a set of large windscreens, each around half a metre in height, vital for enabling the VLT to take the crystal clear cosmic images we see today. The VLT’s dome is key for protecting it against the elements: wind, rain, and grains of sand and dust. But these large structures can cause their own issues for astronomers. Domes can churn up the air contained within them, creating an effect called air turbulence (similar to the turbulence that might give you a fright on a plane journey). This turbulence blurs images taken by the telescope and must be corrected for. The shape of the dome was extensively tested in wind tunnels ...

13 czerwca 2022: This Picture of the Week shows a soothing sunset over ESO’s Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The watercolour skies create a magnificent backdrop for two Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs). The VLT has four of these, and they work together as part of a larger observing facility known as the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The VLTI combines the cosmic light collected by up to four telescopes, either the ATs or their four larger counterparts, the 8.2 m Unit Telescopes (UTs). A system of mirrors housed within underground tunnels channel the different light beams towards the VLTI lab, where they are combined using a technique called interferometry. This allows researchers to probe the universe with much sharper eyes, with a huge “virtual” telescope as large as the separation between the individual telescopes, currently up to about 140 m, which can spot details that each telescope would individually miss. ...

6 czerwca 2022: Resembling a curled sleeping snake, this picture shows NGC 1087. This spiral galaxy, located approximately 80 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cetus, is captured here by a combination of observations conducted at different wavelengths –– or colours –– of light. But no need to worry, NGC 1087 will not poison you! The apparent menacing red glow actually corresponds to clouds of cold molecular gas, the raw material out of which stars form. Astronomers are able to image these clouds thanks to the Chile-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. The bluish regions in the background reveal the pattern of older, already formed stars, imaged by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) also in Chile. The images were taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project. The team is making high-resolution ...

30 maja 2022: This picture of the week shows four powerful laser beams leaving Unit Telescope 4, or ‘Yepun’, at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama desert. These form the VLT’s 4 Laser Guide Star Facility, which enables astronomers to take extremely crisp images of the cosmos by employing a technology known as adaptive optics. Using adaptive optics, telescopes are able to correct for the effects of atmospheric turbulence, which causes the “twinkling” and blurring of stars and other objects in the sky. To do this, a deformable mirror reshapes itself up to 1000 times per second based on the observed turbulence. Astronomers measure turbulence by monitoring a bright star in the field of view. If there isn’t a suitable star, they create artificial stars in the Earth’s upper atmosphere using lasers. The lasers in this image have a very specific orange-yellow colour (with a wavelength of 589 nm), exciting sodium ...

23 maja 2022: This ominous Picture of the Week shows our very own Moon undergoing a total lunar eclipse. The image was taken on the night of May 15 2022 from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth is positioned directly between the Sun and the Moon, blocking some of the Sun’s light. This casts a shadow across the Moon’s surface. The red colour is caused by the Sun’s rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere. Light from the Sun contains a whole spectrum of colours. Blue light is dispersed by the atmosphere through a process called Rayleigh scattering (which makes the sky blue) while red light can pass through the atmosphere more easily, becoming slightly deflected. This red light reaches the Moon’s surface, giving rise to its dramatic crimson hue. This photo was taken during the eclipse’s totality, when the Earth is causing the largest blockage of the Sun’s ...

16 maja 2022: On 12 May 2022, a global network of astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration revealed the first image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. This black hole, called Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, lies 27 000 light years away, and its shadow is only 52 micro-arcseconds wide on the sky. That’s about the size of a donut on the surface of the moon as seen from Earth! This tiny speck is not visible even to the largest individual telescope. The Event Horizon Telescope combines data from multiple radio telescopes located all across the globe, including ALMA and APEX, co-owned by ESO. This effectively creates one giant, “Earth-sized'' virtual telescope, using a technique known as very-long-baseline interferometry. Scientists then use a series of complex algorithms to sift through the data and reconstruct the image we see today. Black holes cannot be directly imaged ...

9 maja 2022: This picture of the week shows the partial solar eclipse that was visible over Chile’s Atacama Desert on 30 April 2022. The photograph was taken in San Pedro de Atacama, above the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). This is near the site of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), which is co-owned and co-operated by the ESO on behalf of its European partners. In the photo, you can see a sequence of images showing the partial solar eclipse, caused by the Moon obscuring a fraction of our line of sight to the Sun. This gives the impression of a small section of the Sun having been cut out. The whole sequence lasted just 54 minutes, and visitors to the scene were pleasantly surprised by it, expecting a regular sunset instead. The Valle de la Luna is also bathed in the dusty glow of the volcanic sunset, caused by the ...

2 maja 2022: This Picture of the Week showcases the impressive NGC 3627 galaxy, also known as Messier 66, located approximately 31 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The image was taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. But why does it have these unusual colours? This image is a combination of observations conducted in different wavelengths of light. But rather than seeing the stars in this galaxy, as in more classical images, what this image displays is gas ionised by newly-born stars, with hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur shown in red, blue and orange respectively. The image was taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, which is using telescopes operating across all wavelengths to make high-resolution observations of nearby galaxies. The goal of the project is to better understand what triggers, boosts or holds back ...

25 kwietnia 2022: This image, taken at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert, shows the Milky Way as it peeks above the horizon, with two of the observatory’s telescopes bracketing the starry, dusty band as it stretches across the sky. To the right stands the domed enclosure of the ESO 3.6-metre telescope and its adjacent smaller sibling, the now-decommissioned Coudé Auxiliary Telescope. To the left is the receiver dish for the Swedish–ESO Submillimetre Telescope, also now decommissioned. Stretching into the distance to the left, and nearly at the centre of the image, lie the other buildings and telescope enclosures hosted at La Silla, their outlines silhouetted against the glowing sky. Visible in the far distance are city lights which, although faint in absolute terms, can become noticeable over long exposures such as this one. The soft glow of light just to the left of centre, which gently curves through the sky, ...

18 kwietnia 2022: Floating in the sky above two of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) Auxiliary Telescopes are a pair of ethereal shapes. These are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — two of the 50 or so satellite galaxies that orbit our more massive Milky Way. Despite being small compared to the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds still contain billions of stars. The Large Magellanic Cloud, in the bottom-right of the image, has a diameter of 14 000 light-years, and the Small Magellanic Cloud in the top-centre is 7000 light-years across. At distances of about 160 000 light-years and 200 000 light-years respectively these satellite galaxies are much closer to the Milky Way than our nearest major galaxy, Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away, making them some of our closest neighbours. The faint red emission in the sky is called airglow, and it's light naturally emitted by atoms and molecules high up in ...