ESO

Heading for the Carina Nebula 🚀 The massive stars in the interior of this cosmic bubble emit intense radiation that causes the surrounding gas to glow. By contrast, other regions of the nebula contain dark pillars of dust cloaking newborn stars. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1828/ 🔭 🧪

ICYMI For the first time, astronomers have found convincing proof that exoplanets could have magnetic fields 🧭 This was achieved by measuring winds on seven very hot, Jupiter-like exoplanets with our VLT & Gemini North. Video summary 🎥 👇 Full story: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2606/ 🔭 🧪 ☄️

Taken with our VLT over a period of four years, these images show the rotating disc of gas & dust around the young star AB Aurigae. Features like “twists” signal the places where #exoplanets could be forming 🪐 More: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/potw2622a/ 🔭 🧪 📹 ESO/A. Boccaletti et al.

Join us on a trip to NGC 3981 🚀 This galaxy has an outlying spiral structure, some of which appears to have been stretched outwards from the galaxy, presumably due to the gravitational influence of a past galactic encounter. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1830/ 🔭

Pirate of the Southern Skies! ☠️ Our cosmic trip today takes you to NGC 2467. Sometimes referred to as the Skull and Crossbones Nebula, this nebulous collection of stellar clusters is the birthplace of many stars. 🔭

Travel to Apep, a massive triple star system named after an ancient Egyptian deity — a gargantuan serpent embodying chaos 🚀 🐍 Sculpted by colliding stellar winds, this system has an explosive future ahead of it. 🔭

Dancing with the enemy? We fly today to the dramatic stellar duo R Aquarii. Most binary stars are bound in a graceful waltz by gravity, but in this case, the smaller star in the pair is steadily stripping material from its dying companion. 🔭

The last breath of a dying star!  Today we are zooming into the planetary nebula ESO 577-24. Its shell of glowing ionised gas are the remains of a dead giant star. As the shell expands and grows dimmer, it will slowly disappear from sight. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1902/  🔭

Fancy a trip to our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud? Specifically, our destination is N180 B, a fertile source of new stars. N180 B’s shape is made up of a gargantuan bubble of ionised hydrogen surrounded by four smaller bubbles. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1903/ 🔭

Ready to meet the cosmic bat? 🦇 Hidden in one of the darkest corners of the Orion constellation, NGC 1788 resembles a bat. This nebula is spreading its hazy "wings" through interstellar space two thousand light-years away. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1904/ 🔭

Visit the monster lurking at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87. The image at the end of the video — the first image ever of a black hole — was released in 2019 by the EHT collaboration, a network of observatories that includes ALMA. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1907/ 🔭

A journey to the Cosmic Seagull!  The Seagull Nebula is the hot and energetic birthplace of new stars. One of its most distinctive regions is Sharpless 2-296, a cloud of gas which forms the “wings” and spans about 100 light-years. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1913/ 🔭

Soon we may see 1 million more satellites in Earth's orbit. The consequences to astronomy would be devastating. Fighting for a fair & sustainable use of space for astronomy and humanity — that's Betty Kioko's job as ESO’s Institutional Affairs Officer 👉 www.eso.org/public/blog/... 🔭 🧪 #DarkSkies

A visit next door!  Travel to the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our nearest galactic neighbours. It is home to various stellar conglomerates and is an ideal laboratory for astronomers to study the processes that shape galaxies. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1914/ 🔭

Let's plunge into the heart of our home galaxy!  There, astronomers found evidence of a dramatic event in the life of the Milky Way: a burst of star formation so intense that it resulted in over a hundred thousand supernova explosions! Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1920/  🔭

Want to see the outcome of a stellar fight? This video takes you to HD101584, a star system where one star grew so large it engulfed the other. Which, in turn, spiralled towards its partner provoking it into shedding its outer layers. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2002/ 🔭

On the occasion of #InternationalWomensDay, we had a chat with Julienne Böttger, a PhD student at our Optical Engineering Department. Her mission? Helping telescopes capture the sharpest possible images of the cosmos. Discover her story in our video 👇 🔭 🧪

Join our trip to AB Aurigae, a young star located 520 light-years away 🚀 Around it lies a disc of dust and gas in which astronomers have spotted a prominent spiral structure — with a ‘twist’ that marks the site where a planet may be forming. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2008/ 🔭

Fly to the complex molecular gas in the centre of the #MilkyWay!🧑‍🚀 In this chaotic and extreme environment, stars don’t necessarily form in the same way as they do in the Milky Way’s outskirts. But new ALMA observations will probe how stars evolve there. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2603/ 🔭🧪

1/ Fly with us through the #MilkyWay 🚀 We're exploring the Central Molecular Zone, where ALMA captured a complex network of cosmic gas filaments. This is the largest image ever taken. Discover more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2603/ 🔭 🧪

Ready to travel 75 million light-years? Our destination is the Kinman Dwarf Galaxy. A few years ago, a star in it disappeared. The end of the video shows an artistic animation of what the star could have looked like before it vanished.  Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2010/ 🔭

Follow this journey deep into the cosmos, and you’ll encounter a butterfly at the end 🦋 Not an ordinary one, though. It's actually the planetary nebula NGC 2899. A giant bubble of gas, it extends up to two light-years from its centre. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2012/ 🔭