European Southern Observatory – Page 11 – Astronomy Now

9 May 2025

Latest News

Pillars of Creation revealed in 3-D

3 May 2015 Astronomy Now

The iconic 20-year-old Hubble image of the Pillars of Creation is reinterpreted in three dimensions by the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, suggesting that the Pillars of Destruction might be an equally apt name.

Thermonuclear supernova ejects Galaxy’s fastest star

7 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the 10-metre Keck II and Pan-STARRS1 telescopes on Hawaii have discovered a Milky Way star travelling at a record 2.7 million miles per hour. Propelled by the thermonuclear detonation of a massive white dwarf companion, this hypervelocity star will escape the gravity of our Galaxy.

An old-looking, dusty galaxy in a young universe

2 March 2015 Astronomy Now

One of the most distant galaxies ever observed, A1689-zD1, has provided astronomers with the first detection of dust in such a remote star-forming system and tantalising evidence for the rapid evolution of galaxies after the Big Bang.

MUSE looks deeper into the universe than Hubble in 3-D

2 March 2015 Astronomy Now

The MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope has given astronomers the best ever three-dimensional view of the deep universe. The new observations of the Hubble Deep Field South reveal the distances, motions and other properties of far more galaxies than ever before in this tiny piece of the sky.

Sun’s close encounter with Scholz’s Star

18 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using large telescopes in South Africa and Chile identify the closest known flyby of a star to our Solar System: a low-mass star system nicknamed “Scholz’s Star” that passed through the Oort Cloud 70,000 years ago.

First pair of merging stars destined to become a supernova found

10 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and instruments in the Canary Islands have discovered a close orbiting pair of white dwarf stars destined to become a Type Ia supernova.

A new VISTA through the Milky Way

4 February 2015 Astronomy Now

While mapping the central regions of the Milky Way in infrared light searching for new and hidden objects, the 4.1-metre VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile looked through a familiar object to wonders beyond.

First light for new exoplanet-hunting telescopes

15 January 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers extend the search for Neptune-sized and smaller exoplanets to the southern sky with the Next-Generation Transit Survey — a new array of twelve robotic telescopes built by a UK, Swiss and German consortium.

Green light for construction of European Extremely Large Telescope

5 December 2014 Astronomy Now

The European Southern Observatory’s Council has authorised spending of around one billion euros for the construction of the 39-metre aperture European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

Illustris Collaboration depiction of large-scale structure in the universe.

Quasar axes align with large-scale cosmic structures

19 November 2014 Astronomy Now

A European research team has used data from ESO’s Very large Telescope in Chile to discover that the rotational axes of quasars align with large-scale structures in the universe.

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