ESO Announcements

ESO–Chile Joint Committee 2024 announces its winners

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 15:17:40 +0100

The ESO–Government of Chile Joint Committee has announced the results for the 2024 period, with a total of 625 million Chilean pesos to be distributed. The funds will be invested primarily in initiatives dedicated to the development of scientific and technological research, fostering cooperation in the field of astronomy, and supporting astronomy dissemination and education projects in Chile.

This year, the Joint Committee received 80 eligible applications, of which 20 were selected as winners across six thematic areas. Of these proposals, 35% will support scientific research, while 20% will be allocated to projects for the dissemination and education of astronomical science in Chile. An example is the support for Chilean students to travel to the 2025 Latin American Astronomy and Astronautics Olympiad, an international inter-school competition that annually brings together students and teachers from 11 Latin American countries. Furthermore, the Joint Committee will continue funding projects aimed at preserving Chile’s dark and pristine skies.

“This important fund directly supports the current and future generations of Chileans working in astronomy. The development of this science not only impacts its own field but also drives and stimulates other disciplines that benefit the country in many ways. Astronomy is a driver of change and a powerful motivational tool for students and young people, which the country must seize,” said Luis Chavarría, ESO Representative in Chile, following the announcement of the results.

Since 1996, the ESO–Government of Chile Joint Committee has been one of the main funds for the development of astronomy, supporting postdoctoral programmes and academic positions in astronomy at Chilean institutions. In addition, it finances national and international scientific visits, technology demonstrators, and educational programmes for teaching and disseminating this science in the country.

The ESO–Government of Chile Joint Committee is composed of representatives from ESO and the Government of Chile, through the Directorate of Energy, Science, Technology and Innovation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, and the Chilean Astronomy Society.

The winning projects of the ESO–Government of Chile 2024 Joint Committee are:

Institution / Institución	Person Responsible / Persona responsable	Name of the project / Nombre del proyecto	Type / Tipo*	Funds in pesos / Fondos en pesos
Sociedad Chilena de Astronomía (SOCHIAS)	Carolina Agurto	Beca Adelina Gutiérrez: SOCHIAS Student Travel Grant for Conferences and Short Research Visits	1	8.000.000
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile	Patricia Tissera	Surviving and disrupted dwarf galaxies	2	69.000.000
Universidad Diego Portales	Manuel Aravena	Unveiling the physical processes that shape galaxies through cosmic time with ALMA and JWST	2	69.000.000
Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez	Gijs Mulders	The Influence of Cold Jupiters in the Formation of Close-in Planets	2	69.000.000
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria Valparaiso	Matthias R. Schreiber	Disk evolution and planet formation around intermediate-mass stars: the key to understand white dwarf pollution	3	7.100.000
Universidad de Antofagasta	Eduardo Unda-Sanzana	A new tool to aid the characterization and prioritise avoidance of artificial satellites threatening astronomy	4	21.500.000
Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción	Ricardo Bustos	Postdoctoral position for the MIST radio telescope	2	63.000.000
Universidad de Valparaíso	Patricia Arevalo	AstroVan Siderales returns home: from Arica to Valparaíso	5	3.340.000
Universidad de Valparaíso	Michel Cure	Probing the winds of B supergiant stars using hydrodynamical and radiative transfer simulations	2	64.500.000
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María	Odette Toloza	Postoctoral researcher for 4MOST white dwarf binary (WDB) survey	2	59.000.000
Universidad de La Serena	Virginia Cuomo	INTERBARS: Revealing the secrets of bars in interacting galaxies	2	66.000.000
Universidad de Chile	Rene Mendez	Invited researcher: State-of-the-art trigonometric parallaxes of faint nearby T/Y dwarfs for constraining formation mechanisms using ESO telescopes.	3	7.500.000
Asociación Astronómica del Norte de Chile (ASTRONOR)	Andrea Castillo	Red de Brigadistas Astronómicos para la Protección del Cielo Nocturno en la Región de Coquimbo	5	10.000.000
Universidad de Valparaíso	Alfredo Vega	Taller de Pintura Cósmica, Segunda Versión	5	8.156.920
Universidad de Concepción	Rodrigo Herrera Camus	Critical support for Chilean PhD programs: The new Universidad de Concepción Astronomy PhD program	1	10.000.000
Universidad de Chile	Cecilia Wolff	Reconocimiento y puesta en valor del Patrimonio Astronómico Arquitectónico de Chile	5	10.000.000
Universidad Andrés Bello	Lorenzo Monaco	Developing Astronomy at UNAB Concepción	6	67.700.000
Universidad de Talca	Carolina Salgado	Scientific Collaboration in the Study of abundances in Metal-poor Stars and Stellar Variability in the field of the Galactic Bulge	1	3.000.000
Sociedad Chilena de Astronomía (SOCHIAS)	Sergio Vasquez	Olimpíadas de Astronomía y Astronauticas’: Chilean representation in the Latin American Olympiad 2025	5	6.000.000
Sociedad Chilena de Astronomía (SOCHIAS)	Bruno Dias	Chilean Representation to the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal	1	3.200.000

Tipo*

Otros proyectos
Programas de post doctorado en astronomía en instituciones chilenas
Visitas científicas extendidas de uno hasta tres meses de post docs, investigadores o académicos seniors
Proyectos de desarrollo y construcción de sistemas tecnológicos para la astronomía
Programas pilotos de capacitación para la enseñanza y difusión de la astronomía en Chile
Apoyo a instituciones académicas a través del financiamiento de cargos de iniciación de profesores titulares (full professors), asociados (associate professors) o asistentes (assistant professors)

Join us on new social media spaces — BlueSky, Instagram Broadcast, LinkedIn Newsletter, Mastodon, Threads and WhatsApp Broadcast

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0100

ESO has joined several new spaces where we wish to continue engaging with audiences that are interested in astronomy.

Follow our BlueSky account where we will share our most important content, as well as news interesting for our scientific community.
Join our Instagram Broadcast channel to discover our most fascinating content, especially if you are a content creator yourself.
Sign up to our LinkedIn Newsletter, especially addressed to professionals in the astronomy field.
Follow us on Mastodon to engage with us on our most important discoveries, news about our telescopes and other items of interest for our community of scientists, engineers and other professionals.
Our Threads channel is back on to connect with users who prefer this space.
Join our WhatsApp Broadcast channel to stay up to date with our most important news.

These changes represent adaptations to our audiences’ interests and to ways that the platforms offer us to engage better with the public. All platforms will be closely monitored, and we might adapt our presence depending on how well these spaces work out for our specific type of content.

PLATO Spec, the new instrument at ESO’s La Silla Observatory is now ready for exoplanet research

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 13:00:00 +0100

Twenty years after its decommissioning, the ESO 1.52-m telescope hosted at our La Silla Observatory in Chile, has been given new life. Its brand-new PLATO Spec instrument, a high-resolution spectrograph developed by a consortium led by the Czech Academy of Sciences, has now seen first light. The 50-year-old telescope was refurbished in 2022 and, with this new instrument, it’s now ready to make new cutting-edge astronomical discoveries.

PLATO Spec, which will conduct observations in visible light, has been designed to screen stars with potential exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. The instrument will help find the most promising stars hosting exoplanet candidates by detecting changes in the host star’s light, as it wobbles due to the planet’s gravitational pull. It is so precise that it will be able to detect changes on a star’s velocity down to just 3 m/s, which is equivalent to a person running at modest speed.

The project was developed by the PLATO Spec Consortium, which includes the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (responsible for the telescope modernisation and front end), the German Thuringian State Observatory Tautenburg (calibration unit), the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (spectrograph), the Chilean Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (data processing and pipeline), as well as other strategic partners. As part of this project, the ESO 1.52-m telescope, which had not been in use since 2003, has been modernised with a top-of-the-line instrument that can be operated remotely.

The spectrograph will assist space-based observatories in their search for exoplanets, including the European Space Agency’s current PLATO and future ARIEL missions. PLATO Spec will be able to confirm their potential detections of exoplanets the size of Jupiter to Neptune and study their atmospheres. Its observations will also help better understand the physics and movement of stars, in particular to measure the activity level of a star and how it changes over time.

The consortium will be responsible for 90% of the telescope’s time, with 10% of observations allocated to Chile-based astronomers. After a proprietary period, all data will be made available to the scientific community through the ESO Science archive.

More Information

The project is partially funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID).

Ambassadors from ESO Member States gather to discuss the importance of northern Chile’s dark skies

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0100

On Tuesday, November 26, at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) offices in Santiago, ambassadors from its Member States gathered to discuss the importance of protecting the dark skies of northern Chile. This region hosts the world’s leading international astronomical projects of recent decades.

The ambassadors were welcomed by ESO's management team, which was led by Xavier Barcons, Director General; Andreas Kaufer, Director of Operations; Thomas Klein, Director of ESO’s La Silla - Paranal Observatory; and Luis Chavarría and Itziar de Gregorio, ESO’s Representative and Deputy Representative in Chile, respectively.

The meeting took place in the context of implementing Chile’s new lighting regulation, which became effective last October. This new regulatory framework aims to control artificial light emissions and prevent light pollution nationwide. Additionally, it includes special rules for 29 municipalities declared as Areas of Scientific Value for Astronomical Observation by Chile’s Ministry of Science. The La Silla, Paranal, and ALMA observatories are all located within these protected zones.

“Today, we are here with the ambassadors of our Member States to highlight the value of Chile’s skies and, more importantly, to explore how we can implement new measures to protect and preserve this extraordinary natural laboratory, which is not only for Chile but for all humanity,” said Luis Chavarría.

During the meeting, the ESO team emphasised the unique conditions of northern Chile, especially those of the Paranal Observatory, which provides a unique window to the Universe and is currently home to ESO's Very Large Telescope. Paranal will also host two key projects in the future: the southern array of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory and ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, the latter being the world’s largest optical telescope currently under construction.

“Chile’s skies are the best in the world for astronomy, and they are a source of pride for all Chileans. That is why we must protect them. This is one of the main reasons why the largest telescopes in the world are located here in our country,” said Itziar de Gregorio, ESO’s Deputy Representative in Chile.

The discussion also highlighted the challenges threatening this privileged region, particularly light pollution resulting from other activities developed in the area, which could jeopardise the scientific relevance of Chile’s astronomical observatories.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister visits ESO Headquarters

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 17:30:00 +0100

Today, Antonio Tajani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Republic of Italy, visited the ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany, together with Armando Varricchio, Ambassador of the Republic of Italy to Germany. They were joined by Sergio Maffettone, Consul General of Italy in Munich, and a small delegation. The visitors had the opportunity to learn more about ESO, its cutting-edge science and technology, and the role Italy plays in its projects. Roberto Ragazzoni, President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and ESO Council Member, was also present.

The visitors were welcomed by Adrian Russell, ESO Director of Programmes, Laura Comendador Frutos, Head of the Executive Office of the Director General at ESO, Roberto Tamai, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) Programme Manager, and Michele Cirasuolo, ESO Instrumentation Manager. The ELT project is one of the ESO activities where the involvement from Italian companies and institutions is particularly strong: a consortium of Italian companies is constructing the dome and telescope structure, in what was the most expensive ground-based astronomy contract ever awarded.

After a presentation about ESO and the ELT by Russell and Tamai, the visitors had a chance to meet a group of Italian staff working at ESO.

Expanding Horizons: crowdsourcing to shape the next ESO programme

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0100

The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is just a few years away from completion, which means ESO is already looking to the future, towards its next innovative ground-based project. What breakthroughs in astronomy will scientists make in the 2040s, and beyond, and what facility is best suited to make them?

Today, ESO is launching the Expanding Horizons website to encourage the astronomy community to discuss the scientific promises a future flagship facility could fulfil and to inform about a call for proposals, to launch in 2026, for ESO’s next transformational ground-based facility.

The new ESO programme should address scientific challenges that cannot be tackled with ESO’s facilities, both current telescopes and those under construction or planned. The goal of reaching out to the community is to encourage inclusive and original input, outside-of-the box thinking, and to collect a broad range of ideas. ESO guarantees a transparent and fair assessment for all proposals. With this open and inclusive process, ESO also wants to anchor its mission of serving the community even deeper into its way of working.

The Expanding Horizons website provides information about the selection process, including the timeline for it, and how it will work. Proposals will be accepted as of the third quarter of 2026, but in the run-up to that date, ESO will offer in-depth workshops for astronomers and engineers around a broad variety of science topics and technologies that could address the scientific challenges of the 2040s. These workshops will encourage open dialogue and debate, which in turn will help develop ideas for ESO’s next programme.

Astronomy’s most accurate ever edge sensors and actuators delivered for ESO’s ELT

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0200

After years of work, and thousands of edge sensors and actuators later, the last batches of these high-tech pieces for the main mirror of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) have been completed.

With a diameter of 39 metres, this mirror (M1) is the largest ever made for an optical telescope; too large to be made of a single piece, it consists instead of 798 individual segments. Each hexagonal segment will have multiple sensors attached to its edges, and will be mounted on three position actuators. The edge sensors, around 4500 pairs, and actuators, about 2400, are critical to precisely adjust the position of all segments and make them work as a single unit. To achieve a mirror shape with a perfect, smooth curvature, the edge sensors will measure potential misalignments, which are then corrected by the ultra-precise actuators.

The sensors for the ELT are the most accurate to ever be used in a telescope. They are able to measure the relative position of the segments with an accuracy of a few nanometres. If a cricket were to land on a segment corner, moving it by a millionth of a millimetre, the sensors would be able to pick up the tiny disturbance. The sensors were produced by the FAMES consortium, a cooperation between the sensor specialists Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik (Germany) and Fogale Nanotech (France) that was created specifically for this one goal.

The position actuators will provide support for the segments, actively controlling them in three directions, known as piston, tip and tilt. This involves moving considerable weights, since each mirror segment weighs 250 kg. Designed and developed by Physik Instrumente (PI, Germany), these unique actuators, that push technology to its limits, will be able to smoothly adjust the position of the segments with a precision of just a couple of nanometres.

Once delivered to ESO, the edge sensors and position actuators are shipped to Chile, where they are later integrated with the mirror segments and within the telescope, respectively. The ELT is currently under construction atop Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Once finished, it will make unique, revolutionary and exciting new discoveries that will change our understanding of the cosmos.

Laser sources for ESO’s ELT and GRAVITY+ now completed

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +0200

Today, at a ceremony near Munich, staff from ESO and German company TOPTICA celebrated the completion of the last laser source of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Lasers for the GRAVITY+ upgrade to ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have also been completed.

The ELT will be equipped with six powerful lasers [1] that will excite sodium atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere, creating artificial stars. These ‘stars’ are used to measure the blurring caused by the atmosphere so that the ELT’s adaptive mirrors can correct for it. By employing sophisticated "adaptive-optics" systems, the telescope and its instruments can obtain sharper images than any other ground-based telescope.

TOPTICA, in partnership with the Canadian company MPB Communications Inc. (MPBC), has just completed production of a series of 9 laser sources, which generate the laser light. Six of these will be used on the ELT and three on GRAVITY+, an extensive upgrade being done to ESO’s VLTI and its GRAVITY instrument. All nine laser sources have now been completed and delivered to ESO. The recent laser production continues a successful programme of work, which started in 2009, with the goal of developing and industrialising a laser technology suitable for sodium laser guide stars at astronomical telescopes.

ESO will be responsible for integrating the laser sources with the remaining components that make up the laser guide star units. Each unit includes, in addition to the light source, a projection subunit, which expands the laser beam and directs it into the sky, and a heat exchanger, to stabilise the temperature of the laser source. Dutch organisation TNO is contracted to provide the projection subunits, while Italian company Tecoelettra has delivered the heat-exchanger units.

Similarly to the lasers on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, each of the new lasers will deliver 22 watts of yellow-orange laser light — about 4000 times the maximum allowed for a commercial laser pointer — in a beam with a diameter of 30 centimetres. Thanks to these lasers, the ELT will be able to deliver razor-sharp images all over the sky.

Once it sees first light later this decade, ESO’s ELT will allow us to peer deeper and further into the Universe than ever before. The telescope is currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Notes

[1] The ELT can accommodate a total of eight laser guide stars. It will be equipped with six at the time of first light, with the possibility to increase to eight lasers in the future.

Open House Day: Behind the Scenes at ESO on 3 October 2024

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +0200

On Thursday 3 October 2024, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) will open its doors during the Open House Day of the Garching Research Campus in the north of Munich, Germany. This will be an exciting opportunity to visit ESO and other renowned research institutes for a behind the scenes experience, all for free. The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre will also offer planetarium shows and other activities.

From 10:00 to 17:00 CEST, the ESO headquarters in Garching bei München will open its doors to everyone who is curious about space and astronomy. Discover the science and technology behind ESO’s state-of-the-art telescopes, meet the people working on and with them, and find out how instruments are prototyped and tested. ESO astronomers and engineers are at the premises all day to answer your questions. ESO will even provide a live connection to Chile, where the organisation’s telescopes are hosted. In short: a perfect Science Day Out!

Share your impressions of the visit online using the event’s hashtag #TagDerOffenenTür and by tagging us @esoastronomy on Facebook and Instagram, or @eso on X.

Activities overview

Behind the scenes at ESO – Take a guided tour of the innovatively designed headquarters (pre-registration required*) and see how prototype instruments for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope are made.
Virtual and 3D tours – Make a virtual trip to ESO's stunning sites in Chile to discover our telescopes and instruments.
Talks, podcasts and videos – Listen, watch and learn about ESO’s telescopes and the research they enable.
Planetarium shows – Experience a planetarium show in the ESO Supernova exhibition (pre-registration required*).
Guided tours of the ESO Supernova exhibition (pre-registration required*)
Kids activities – Get your infrared picture taken, build a mini-telescope out of Lego or have a galaxy painted on your cheek. Visit all stations to collect stamps and get a present!
Looking for future co-workers – Calling all youngsters for a hands-on tour, with workshops and experiments.
Solar observation – Observe the Sun with a special filter on a telescope (weather permitting).
Comet factory – Join a spectacular comet-making demonstration.
Live connection to Paranal and ALMA – A direct connection to ESO’s telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Check out ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal and ALMA, the largest operating astronomical project, consisting of 66 antennas located 5000 metres above sea.
Chill videos – Treat yourself to a moment of relaxation with impressive images of our sites in Chile and a chill-out soundtrack to match.

Download the full programme in English or German (PDF).

(*) For planetarium shows and guided tours you need to get your ticket 45 minutes before the activity starts. For tours of the ESO headquarters, get your ticket at the main ESO reception. For tours of the ESO Supernova exhibition, get your ticket at the ESO Supernova reception. You can also pre-book planetarium shows online (from 25 September at 12:00 until 2 October). A limited number of tickets are available.

Practical information

All activities are free of charge.
ESO has a cafeteria where food and light refreshments will be available in exchange for a donation to the ESO Charity Group.
Media representatives who wish to attend the event are kindly asked to confirm their participation by contacting press@eso.org.

Notes

During this event, photographs and video recordings will be made. These may contain non-directly identifiable people (e.g. group shots). If you are clearly identifiable, we will obtain your written consent. Read more on the use of this material and your rights in our Privacy Notice (PDF).

United Nations Secretary-General Visits ALMA

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0200

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the largest and most sensitive telescopes of its kind in the world, recently received a visit from United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, who had the opportunity to learn about how ALMA's high-tech systems capture and combine signals from the cosmos. ALMA represents partnership between Europe (European Southern Observatory), North America (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) and East Asia (National Astronomy Observatory of Japan), along with the Republic of Chile. These nations worked together to create a scientific instrument that none of them could build on their own.

Chile has been called an astronomy paradise, and that’s why ALMA was constructed on the Chajnantor Plateau in the country’s Atacama Desert, one of the highest and driest places on Earth. This position provides a clear view of the southern sky, while atmospheric conditions at the Plateau are ideal for ALMA’s millimeter and submillimeter observations.

More information

ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), NSTC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.