VISTA – Astronomy Now

Mountaintop majesty

27 May 2022 Keith Cooper

The sweeping river of stars that is the Milky Way ribbons over Cerro Paranal in Chile, home to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (on the peak to the left) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, VISTA (on the peak to the far right).

ESO’S VISTA telescope reveals hidden stars in Messier 78

5 October 2016 Astronomy Now

In this new image of the nebula Messier 78, young stars cast a bluish pall over their surroundings, while red fledgling stars peer out from their cocoons of cosmic dust. ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) sees near-infrared light, which passes right through dust, permitting astronomers to probe deep into the heart of the stellar environment.

The birth of monsters: VISTA pinpoints earliest giant galaxies

18 November 2015 Astronomy Now

ESO’s VISTA survey telescope has spied a horde of previously hidden massive galaxies that existed when the universe was in its infancy. By discovering and studying more of these galaxies than ever before, astronomers have, for the first time, found out exactly when such monster galaxies first appeared.

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

11 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The first results have been released from a major new dark matter survey of the southern skies using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST KiDS survey will allow astronomers to make precise measurements of dark matter, the structure of galaxy halos, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters.

Milky Way’s dark-matter-dominated companion galaxy found

9 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Analysis of near-infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope provides evidence for a dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy 300,000 light-years away predicted to exist in 2009.

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.