https://www.eso.org/public/news/Top News from ESOenTue, 17 Dec 2024 17:00:00 +0100https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2418/An international team of researchers has detected a binary star orbiting close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is the first time a stellar pair has been found in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. The discovery, based on data collected by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), helps us understand how stars survive in environments with extreme gravity, and could pave the way for the detection of planets close to Sagittarius A*.Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:00:00 +0100https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2418/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2417/“For the first time, we have succeeded in taking a zoomed-in image of a dying star in a galaxy outside our own Milky Way,” says Keiichi Ohnaka, an astrophysicist from Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile. Located a staggering 160 000 light-years from us, the star WOH G64 was imaged thanks to the impressive sharpness offered by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI). The new observations reveal a star puffing out gas and dust, in the last stages before it becomes a supernova.Thu, 21 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0100https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2417/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2416/For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals this spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly nicknamed the Dark Wolf Nebula, it was captured in a 283-million-pixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0100https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2416/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2415/Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe was only 700 million years old. This is surprising since, according to our current understanding of galaxy formation, such early galaxies are expected to appear more chaotic. The rotation and structure of REBELS-25 were revealed using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner.Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2415/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2414/Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our Sun. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus, a year lasts just over three Earth days. The team’s observations also hint at the existence of three more exoplanet candidates, in various orbits around the star.Tue, 01 Oct 2024 14:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2414/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2413/Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects ― the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope, the team monitored the central regions of our Galaxy over more than 13 years. At 500 terabytes of data, this is the largest observational project ever carried out with an ESO telescope.Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2413/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2412/For the first time, astronomers have captured images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope co-owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), in July and August 2023. They show giant, hot bubbles of gas, 75 times the size of the Sun, appearing on the surface and sinking back into the star’s interior faster than expected.Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2412/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2411/The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other facilities, that achieved the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of Earth [1]. They managed this feat by detecting light from distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz, equivalent to a wavelength of 0.87 mm. The Collaboration estimates that in future they will be able to make black hole images that are 50% more detailed than was possible before, bringing the region immediately outside the boundary of nearby supermassive black holes into sharper focus. They will also be able to image more black holes than they have done so far. The new detections, part of a pilot experiment, were published today in The Astronomical Journal.Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2411/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2410/The European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope (ESO’s ELT), under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is one step closer to completion. German company SCHOTT has successfully delivered the blank for the last of the 949 segments commissioned for the telescope’s primary mirror (M1). With a diameter of more than 39 metres, M1 will be by far the largest mirror ever made for a telescope.Thu, 27 Jun 2024 17:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2410/https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2409/In late 2019 the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers have used data from several space and ground-based observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track how the galaxy’s brightness has varied. In a study out today, they conclude that they are witnessing changes never seen before in a galaxy — likely the result of the sudden awakening of the massive black hole at its core.Tue, 18 Jun 2024 14:00:00 +0200https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2409/