Giant Magellan Telescope: New Mega-Telescope in Chilean Andes

Artist's impression of the Giant Magellan Telescope's mirror system.

Credit: Giant Magellan Telescope /GMTO Corporation

A gigantic telescope designed to help astronomers solve some of the universe's deepest mysteries will soon start taking shape atop an arid mountain in the Chilean Andes.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) completed several major external reviews earlier this year and is on target to enter the construction phase before the end of 2014, project representatives said.

If all goes according to plan, the megascope should begin observing the heavens early in the next decade.

"The group here on the project is basically anticipating that we will begin construction activities late this year," GMT director Patrick McCarthy, Carnegie Observatories, told reporters.

"We're going ahead full steam, aiming for that 2021 first light when the first few mirrors get up on the mountain, along with all the rest of the hardware."

Scientists will use the enormous telescope to probe the nature of mysterious dark energy and dark matter, find and characterise exoplanets and study how the universe's first stars and galaxies came together, GMT representatives have said.



The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be built on Chile's Las Campanas Peak, at an altitude of about 8,500 feet (2,550 meters). The site was leveled by an excavation blast in March 2012.

GMT will arrange seven 27.6-foot-wide (8.4 m) primary mirrors, the biggest single-piece astronomical mirrors ever made, into one light-collecting surface 80 feet (24 m) across.

The completed scope will have 10 times the resolving power of NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope, project representatives say.

The third primary mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is cast in a spinning furnace at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab on Aug. 23, 2013.

Credit: Mike Wall/Space.com

The GMT design also incorporates seven smaller secondary mirrors, which will change shape to counter the blurring effects of Earth's thick atmosphere.

Each of GMT's 20-ton primary mirrors must be shaped and smoothed to near perfection. Their surfaces cannot be off by more than 20 nanometers, about the width of a single glass molecule.

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that six of the mirrors must be steeply curved, since they surround a central (symmetric) mirror.

Manufacturing and polishing the primary mirrors, activities that are done at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, have proved to be enormously challenging, McCarthy said.

But one of the big mirrors is finished, while two others have already been cast. Casting of the fourth one is scheduled for next March.

"So we've dealt with that as our principal technical risk, and we've retired that," McCarthy said.



Fundraising is another challenge. The project's total cost is pegged at $860 million, though perhaps another $100 million will eventually be needed to cover contingencies and the cost of inflation, McCarthy said.

The money will be provided by GMT's many partners, which include educational institutions such as the University of Arizona, Harvard and the University of Chicago, private organizations like the Carnegie Institution for Science and international entities, such as the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Money is now coming in "at a rate that makes us pretty confident that we'll manage to raise enough funds to keep the project on schedule, and that the schedule will be set by the engineering rather than by how fast we can raise money," McCarthy said.

ESO ALMA: Chile Earthquake Leaves Astronomy Observatories Unscathed

The epicenter for the 8.2 earthquake that rocked Chile on Tuesday was approximately 310 miles (500 km) from the Very Large Telescope and ALMA.

Credit: ESO

The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Tuesday (April 1) left three main European-built observatories in the region relatively untouched despite causing damage and a tsunami along the country's western coast.

The powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of the coastal city Iquique, causing several landslides and triggering a tsunami that rose some 7 feet (2.1 meters).

The earthquake struck at 8:46 p.m. local time (7:46 EDT).

A powerful 7.6-magnitude aftershock rattled the area late Wednesday night (April 2).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates three major observatories in Chile, each with multiple telescopes: the Paranal Observatory, which is home to Europe's Very Large Telescope; the La Silla Observatory, which hosts various telescopes, such as the 2.2-m Max-Planck telescope, 1.2-m Swiss Leonhard Euler Telescope and the 1.5-m Danish Telescope; and ALMA and APEX, or the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. (Also in the Chajnantor region is Caltech's Chajnantor Observatory.)

The epicenter was located approximately 310 miles (500 km) from both the ALMA/APEX and Paranal sites.

"The quake was felt at the ALMA camp as a prolonged swaying, which lasted for about 2 minutes," the ALMA Observatory said in a statement.

However, none of the ESO facilities reported any damage.

Cordón Caulle: Volcanic Eruptions amidst a Lightning Storm - Francisco Negroni

In March 2012, Francisco Negroni visited Cordón Caulle in Puyehue National Park in the Andes of Ranco Province, Chile with his camera equipment.

He left the site with these crazy photos of the active volcano erupting while a lightning storm took place. 

These pictures are so remarkable and dramatic, we’re not sure if we would have loved to be right there at that time.

JAXA ALOS Image: Heart of the Atacama from orbit

The Japanese Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS), captured this image on 30 May 2010.

Credit: JAXA/ESA

This ALOS satellite image shows the heart-shaped Miscanti lake and smaller Miñiques lake in northern Chile.

The lakewater is brackish – meaning that it's saltier than freshwater, but not as much as seawater.

This is due to the salinity in the soil. Chile's largest salt flat, the Salar de Atacama, lies to the west (not pictured).

Two partially snow-covered volcanoes can be seen above and below the lakes on the right, while plains stretch out to the west in a nearly vegetation-free environment.

The area pictured is part of the Atacama Desert, which runs along part of South America's central west coast.

It is considered one of the driest places on Earth, as moisture from the Amazon Basin is blocked by the Andes to the east, as well as from the Pacific Ocean by the Chilean Coastal Range to the west.

Pacific Ocean currents and wind circulation also play a major role in the desert climate.

Because of the Atacama plateau's high altitude, low cloud cover and lack of light pollution, it is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations and home to two major observatories.

The European ESO ALMA Observatory is located on the Atacama Plateau.

Some areas of the desert have been compared to the planet Mars, and have been used as a location for filming scenes set on the red planet.

Just last year, ESA tested a self-steering rover in the Atacama, which was selected for its similarities to martian conditions.

NASA ISS Image: Brüggen Glacier in southern Chile

The Expedition 3 crew of the International Space Station caught a rare glimpse of the massive ice fields and glaciers of Patagonia early in the afternoon on September 25, 2001. 

This part of the South American coast sees frequent storms and is often obscured from view by cloud cover.

Brüggen Glacier in southern Chile is the largest western outflow from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and, unlike most glaciers worldwide, advanced significantly since 1945.

From 1945 to 1976, Brüggen surged 5 km across the Eyre Fjord, reaching the western shore by 1962 and cutting off Lake Greve from the sea.

The glacier continued advancing both northward and southward in the fjord to near its present position before stabilizing. 

The growth covers a distance of more than 10 km north to south, adding nearly 60 square km of ice.

Additional information on this and other Patagonian glaciers may be found from the United State Geological Survey from their information on “Historic Fluctuations of Outlet Glaciers from the Patagonian Ice Fields.”

Image Credit: Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center.

Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

ESO WFI Telescope Image: 'Elephant Trunk' Space Clouds Surround Star Cluster - Video

The new photo shows a mysterious ring and structures known as "elephant trunks" — huge columns of interstellar dust and gas. You can watch the video fly-through of the new space cloud photos provided by ESO.

Astronomers used the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory to capture the amazing new images of the space clouds around the distant star cluster NGC 3572.

"This new image shows how these clouds of gas and dust have been sculpted into whimsical bubbles, arcs and the odd features known as elephant trunks by the stellar winds flowing from this gathering of hot young stars," ESO officials wrote in an image description.

The Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured the best image so far of the star cluster NGC 3572, a gathering of young stars, and its spectacular surroundings. 

Image released Nov. 13, 2013. 

Credit: ESO/G. Beccari

Another interesting aspect of the new image is a ring-shaped nebula located a bit above the center of the picture.

Scientists aren't sure what the origin of the nebula is, but they think it might be a leftover from the cloud of material that formed the star cluster, or it could be a bubble around a hot star.

Some astronomers also suggest that it could be a planetary nebula — the remains of a dying sun-like star.

Stars in clusters might have formed at around the same time, but they are incredibly diverse in size, temperature, colour and mass, ESO officials said.

"These gangs of young stars stick together for a relatively short time, typically tens or hundreds of millions of years," ESO officials said.

"They are gradually disbanded by gravitational interactions, but also because the most massive stars are short-lived, burning through their fuel quickly and ultimately ending their lives in violent supernova explosions, thus contributing to the dispersion of the remaining gas and stars in the cluster."

GeMS System: Revolutionary instrument delivers sharper universe to astronomers

These are images from the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) System Verification science observations. 

Credit: Gemini Observatory

A unique new instrument at Gemini South in Chile takes the removal of atmospheric distortions (using adaptive optics technology) to a new level.

Today's release of seven ultrasharp, large-field images from the instrument's first science observations demonstrate its remarkable discovery potential.

Astronomers recently got their hands on Gemini Observatory's revolutionary new adaptive optics system, called GeMS, "and the data are truly spectacular!" says Robert Blum, Deputy Director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory with funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

"What we have seen so far signals an incredible capability that leaps ahead of anything in space or on the ground – and it will for some time."

Blum is currently using GeMS to study the environments in and around star clusters, and his preliminary data, targeting the spectacular cluster identified as RMC 136, are among a set of seven images released today.

The remaining six images –– spanning views of violent star-forming regions, to the graceful interaction of distant colliding galaxies –– only hint at the diversity of cutting-edge research that GeMS enables.

After more than a decade in development, the system, now in regular use at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, is streaming ultrasharp data to scientists around the world – providing a new level of detail in their studies of the universe.

The images made public today show the scientific discovery power of GeMS (derived from the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System), which uses a potent combination of multiple lasers and deformable mirrors to remove atmospheric distortions (blurriness) from ground-based images.

Unlike previous AO systems, GeMS uses a technique called "multi-conjugate adaptive optics," which not only captures more of the sky in a single shot (between 10- to 20-times more area of sky imaged in each "picture") but also forms razor-sharp images uniformly across the entire field, from top-to-bottom and edge-to-edge.

This makes Gemini's 8-meter mirror 10- to 20-times more efficient, giving astronomers the option to either expose deeper, or explore the universe more effectively with a wider range of filters, which will allow them to pick out subtle yet important structural details never seen before.

"Each image tells a story about the scientific potential of GeMS," says Benoit Neichel who led the GeMS commissioning effort in Chile.

According to Neichel, the targets were selected to demonstrate the instrument's diverse "discovery space" while producing striking images that would make astronomers say, "I need that!"

More information: The new images, shown as a collage, as well as images of the system in operation in Chile, are available as high-resolution downloads at: www.gemini.edu/12020

NASA tests Zoe, the new Mars rover prototype, in Chile

NASA scientists said Friday they were testing a prototype of a robot the US space agency hopes to send to Mars in 2020 in Chile's Atacama desert.

NASA hopes to use this kind of rover to explore life-friendly sites found by Curiosity, the rover already searching for signs of life on Mars.

It has been there since last August.

The researchers say the desert, the driest spot on Earth, mimics the conditions of the Red Planet, and the agency has used it in the past to test space-bound equipment.

The robot, controlled remotely from the US, will continue testing through Sunday.

The solar-powered 771-kilogram (1,700-pound) machine is equipped with cameras and a drill able to dig up to a meter (three feet) deep.

It is testing its sensors, its cameras, its ability to store energy, as it searches for evidence of microbial life in the desert.

The Zoe robot will use a one-meter drill, shown here protruding above the robot's solar cell deck, to search for subsurface life in Chile's Atacama Desert. 

Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute and the SETI Institute are leading the NASA-sponsored field experiment. 

Credit: Carnegie Mellon University

ESO VLT Captures Image of gaseous Exoplanet

This image from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows the newly discovered planet HD95086 b, next to its parent star. Image released June 3, 2013.

CREDIT: ESO/J. Rameau

A newly discovered gaseous planet has been directly photographed orbiting a star about 300 light-years from Earth.

Imaging alien planets is difficult, and this world may be the least massive planet directly observed outside of the solar system, scientists say.

A sharp new photo released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (June 3) depicts the suspected gas giant (called HD 95086 b) circling its young star (named HD 95086) in infrared light.

The star has been removed from the image to allow the planet — shown as a bright blue dot at the bottom left of the picture — to shine through.

HD 95086 b was sighted by ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Based on the planet's brightness, scientists estimate that it is only about four or five times more massive than Jupiter.

Most exoplanets are discovered via indirect means, such as detecting a dip in a star's light when a planet passes in front of it, blocking part of its face, or finding a slight wobble in a star's movement caused by the gravitational tug of planets orbiting it.

"Direct imaging of planets is an extremely challenging technique that requires the most advanced instruments, whether ground-based or in space," Julien Rameau, an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics and Planetology in Grenoble, France and lead author of the study announcing the discovery, said in a statement.

"Only a few planets have been directly observed so far, making every single discovery an important milestone on the road to understanding giant planets and how they form."

Another photo from ESO shows the star and its planet in context with other stars in the southern constellation of Carina, the keel.

The planet orbits its star at about twice the distance from the sun to Neptune and about 56 times the distance between Earth and the sun. The blue circle in the photo represents the distance between the sun and Neptune.

This picture shows the sky around the young star HD 95086 in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel). 

It was created from images from the Digitized Sky Survey 2.

CREDIT: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

ESO: Snow Falling on ALMA Telescopes

Credit: ESO/José Francisco Salgado

This image shows a wintry La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert sitting beneath the Milky Way.

Despite the telescopes’ location in one of the best areas for astronomical observation, at an altitude of 7800 feet (2400 meters), the desert cannot completely escape winter weather, including snow blanketing the mountain peak and telescope domes.

The high altitude sites operated by the ESA European Southern Observatory (ESO) can experience both hot and cold temperatures through the year, including sometimes harsh conditions. 

ESO Danish Telescope Captures a striking image of NGC 6559

The Danish 1.54-meter telescope located at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. 

This region of sky includes glowing red clouds of mostly hydrogen gas, blue regions where starlight is being reflected from tiny particles of dust and also dark regions where the dust is thick and opaque. 

Credit: ESO

The Danish 1.54-meter telescope located at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud.

NGC 6559 is a cloud of gas and dust located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer).

The glowing region is a relatively small object, just a few light-years across, in contrast to the one hundred light-years and more spanned by its famous neighbour, the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8).

Although it is usually overlooked in favour of its distinguished companion, NGC 6559 has the leading role in this new picture.

The gas in the clouds of NGC 6559, mainly hydrogen, is the raw material for star formation. When a region inside this nebula gathers enough matter, it starts to collapse under its own gravity.

The centre of the cloud grows ever denser and hotter, until thermonuclear fusion begins and a star is born. The hydrogen atoms combine to form helium atoms, releasing energy that makes the star shine.

These brilliant hot young stars born out of the cloud energise the hydrogen gas still present around them in the nebula.

The gas then re-emits this energy, producing the glowing threadlike red cloud seen near the centre of the image. This object is known as an emission nebula.

But NGC 6559 is not just made out of hydrogen gas. It also contains solid particles of dust, made of heavier elements, such as carbon, iron or silicon.

The bluish patch next to the red emission nebula shows the light from the recently formed stars being scattered—reflected in many different directions—by the microscopic particles in the nebula.

Known to astronomers as a reflection nebula, this type of object usually appears blue because the scattering is more efficient for these shorter wavelengths of light.

In regions where it is very dense, the dust completely blocks the light behind it, as is the case for the dark isolated patches and sinuous lanes to the bottom left-hand side and right-hand side of the image.

To look through the clouds at what lies behind, astronomers would need to observe the nebula using longer wavelengths that would not be absorbed.

The Milky Way fills the background of the image with countless yellowish older stars. Some of them appear fainter and redder because of the dust in NGC 6559.

This eye-catching image of star formation was captured by the Danish Faint Object Spectrograph and its Camera (DFOSC) on the 1.54-metre Danish Telescope at La Silla in Chile.

This national telescope has been in use at La Silla since 1979 and was recently refurbished to turn it into a remote-controlled state-of-the-art telescope.

ESO TRAPPIST robotic telescope: A harvest of exoplanets

Credit: Trappist Telescope, Atacama

Among the many planets detected orbiting other stars (exoplanets) over the last twenty years, a little less than three hundred periodically pass in front of their star.

This is what astronomers call a planetary transit.

Exoplanets that "transit" their stars are key objects for the study of other planetary systems, because they are the only planets beyond our solar system that can be studied in detail, both in terms of their physical parameters (mass, radius, orbital parameters) and their atmospheric properties (thermal structure, dynamics, composition).

The University of Liege (ULg) is deeply involved in this exciting research topic, notably through its TRAPPIST robotic telescope installed in 2010 in one of the best astronomical sites of the world, the La Silla European Southern Observatory in the Chilean Atacama desert.

One of the scientific objectives of this telescope is the detection and study of exoplanets via the accurate measurement of their transits. In just three years, it has fully demonstrated its great potential in this area.

Indeed, TRAPPIST participated in the detection of thirty planets, representing ten percent of all transiting exoplanets known to date.

This important contribution is the result of the excellent expertise of the Liege astronomers, and their active collaboration with other international teams of "planet hunters", including the prestigious Swiss team of Professor Didier Queloz, co-discoverer of the first exoplanet in 1995.

Among the thirty exoplanets co-detected by TRAPPIST, most are gas giants similar to Jupiter, but in much closer orbits.

"With the intense radiation that they undergo from their star, these planets are real gold mines for the study of other worlds," says Michaël Gillon, Principal Investigator of the TRAPPIST exoplanets program.

Michaël Gillon

"Indeed, it makes possible a number of measurements that give us access to valuable information on their atmospheric properties. TRAPPIST also detected the transit of a planet twice smaller than Jupiter orbiting a nearby star much less massive than the Sun."

"The name of this small planet is GJ3470b" continues Michaël Gillon, "and it has a mass and a size comparable to those of Uranus and Neptune, suggesting a composition rich in water ice. "

"The detection of this planet much smaller than Jupiter is very exciting, not only for its own study, but also because it demonstrates that by focusing on even less massive stars, TRAPPIST should be able to detect rocky planets similar in size and mass to Earth. Our current projects go in that direction. "

Probably dreaming of other Earths too, TRAPPIST continues to observe the gorgeous Chilean sky night after night, to the delight of Liege astronomers that analyze its valuable data thirteen thousand kilometers away ...

• The diversity of the 28 planets co-detected by TRAPPIST
• The smallest: GJ3470b, ~2.3 times smaller than Jupiter, or barely larger than Neptune and Uranus.
• The largest: WASP-79b, ~2.1 times larger than Jupiter.
• The least massive: GJ3470b, with a mass ± equal to Uranus', or 23 times less massive than Jupiter.
• The most massive: WASP-36b, ~2.3 times more massive than Jupiter.
• The coolest: GJ4370b, with a temperature of ~420° Celsius, similar to Venus' surface temperature.
• The hottest: WASP-78b, with a temperature of ~2080° Celsius.
• The nearest: GJ3470b, at ~100 light-years.
• The farest: CoRoT-17b, at ~3000 light-years.

The closest to its star: WASP-43b, ~65 times closer to its star than Earth from the Sun. It completes its orbit in a bit more than 19h !

The last two exoplanets co-detected by TRAPPIST are presented in the following paper, just published in the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics: Gillon M. et al. 2013, WASP-64b and WASP-72b: two new transiting highly irradiated giant planets, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 552, A82. Lien : arxiv.org/abs/1210.4257

The complete list of scientific publications based on TRAPPIST data is available here

ESO Astronomers discover extremely rare triple quasar

An infrared image of the triple quasar system QQQ J1519+0627, made using the 3.5-m aperture telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory. 

The three quasars are labelled A, B and C.

Image Credit: Emanuele Paolo Farina

For only the second time in history, a team of scientists including Michele Fumagalli from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the United States have discovered an extremely rare triple quasar system.

Their work is published in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sit in the centre of a galaxy, surrounding a black hole.

In systems with multiple quasars, the bodies are held together by gravity and are believed to be the product of galaxies colliding.

It is very difficult to observe triplet quasar systems, because of observational limits that prevent researchers from differentiating multiple nearby bodies from one another at astronomical distances. Moreover, such phenomena are presumed to be very rare.

The team led by Emanuele Farina of the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, combined observations from the New Technology Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at La Silla, Chile and from the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain with advanced modelling.

This enabled them to find the triplet quasar, called QQQ J1519+0627. The light from the three quasars has travelled 9 billion light years to reach us, which means the light was emitted when the universe was only a third of its current age.

Advanced analysis confirmed that what the team found was indeed three distinct sources of quasar energy and that the phenomenon is extremely rare.

Two members of the triplet are closer to each other than the third. This means that the system could have been formed by interaction between the two adjacent quasars, but was probably not triggered by interaction with the more-distant third quasar.

Furthermore, no evidence was seen of any ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (galaxies with very strong emission in infrared light), which is where quasars are commonly found.

As a result, the team proposes that this triplet quasar system is part of some larger structure that is still undergoing formation.

"Honing our observational and modelling skills and finding this rare phenomenon will help us understand how cosmic structures assemble in our universe and the basic processes by which massive galaxies form," Fumagalli said.

"Further study will help us figure out exactly how these quasars came to be and how rare their formation is," Farina added.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).

ESA: Yepun, one of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT)

Yepun (UT4), one of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) stands beneath bright star trails appearing to circle the south celestial pole, lying in the southern constellation of Octans (The Octant). 

Many exposures were taken over time and combined to give the final appearance of circular tracks.

Four Unit Telescopes (UTs) make up the VLT at Paranal, Chile.

Each UT possesses a name in the language of the native Mapuche tribe.

The names of the UTs — Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun — represent celestial objects: the sun, moon, the Southern Cross constellation and Venus, respectively.

The UT in this photograph is Yepun, also known as UT4. Image released Jan. 7, 2013.One of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) stands beneath bright star trails appearing to circle the south celestial pole, lying in the southern constellation of Octans (The Octant).

Many exposures were taken over time and combined to give the final appearance of circular tracks. Four Unit Telescopes (UTs) make up the VLT at Paranal, Chile. Each UT possesses a name in the language of the native Mapuche tribe.

The names of the UTs — Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun — represent celestial objects: the sun, moon, the Southern Cross constellation and Venus, respectively. 

Puyehue Volcanic Eruption in Chile

These photos show the dramatic effects of huge volcanic ash clouds being shot through by fierce lightning bolts at the recent Puyehue eruption in Chile.

ESO Dark Energy Camera Image: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365

This image from the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera on a mountaintop in Chile shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365.

The most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created has captured and recorded ancient starlight for the first time.

Picture: FERMILAB/US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY/AFP/Getty

ESA ESO Image of Pipe Nebula - Curious Dark Nebula

Just as Rene Magritte wrote "This is not a pipe" on his famous painting, this is also not a pipe. It is however a picture of part of a vast dark cloud of interstellar dust called the Pipe Nebula.

This new and very detailed image of what is also known as Barnard 59 was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory.

By coincidence this image is appearing on the 45th anniversary of the painter's death.

The Pipe Nebula is a prime example of a dark nebula. Originally, astronomers believed these were areas in space where there were no stars but it was later discovered that dark nebulae actually consist of clouds of interstellar dust so thick it can block out the light from the stars beyond.

The Pipe Nebula appears silhouetted against the rich star clouds close to the centre of the Milky Way in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer).

Barnard 59 forms the mouthpiece of the Pipe Nebula and is the subject of this new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope. This strange and complex dark nebula lies about 600-700 light-years away from Earth.

The nebula is named after the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard who was the first to systematically record dark nebulae using long-exposure photography and one of those who recognised their dusty nature.

Barnard catalogued a total of 370 dark nebulae all over the sky. A self-made man, he bought his first house with the prize money from discovering several comets.

Barnard was an extraordinary observer with exceptional eyesight who made contributions in many fields of astronomy in the late 19th and early 20th century.

At first glance, your attention is most likely drawn to the centre of the image where dark twisting clouds look a little like the legs of a vast spider stretched across a web of stars.

However, after a few moments you will begin to notice several finer details. Foggy, smoky shapes in the middle of the darkness are lit up by new stars that are forming.

Star formation is common within regions that contain dense, molecular clouds, such as in dark nebulae.

The dust and gas will clump together under the influence of gravity and more and more material will be attracted until the star is formed.

However, compared to similar regions, the Barnard 59 region is undergoing relatively little star formation and still has a great deal of dust.

If you look carefully you may also be able to spot more than a dozen tiny blue, green and red strips scattered across the picture.

These are asteroids, chunks of rock and metal a few kilometres across that are orbiting the Sun.

The majority lie in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Barnard 59 is about ten million times further away from the Earth than these tiny objects.

US National Radio Astronomy undergoes Budget Cuts

The US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday announced layoffs and travel restrictions.

Director Anthony Beasley, who was appointed in February, had to find $3 million in 2013 budget cuts — about 6% of the organization’s budget, excluding its commitments to the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile.

The cuts include layoffs of 26 staff members.

According to Beasley, it will mean that there will be less support for users of facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array and Green Bank Telescope (pictured). “Morale is obviously being impacted by this,” he says.

Beasley says the cuts reflect the overall efforts of the National Science Foundation to trim budgets in order to make way for new projects, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

NRAO is not the only astronomy community forced to tighten its belt. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, announced in April that it was laying off 35 scientists and support workers.

ESA EXOMARS: Tests self-steering Rover in Chile's ‘Mars’ desert

ESA assembled a top engineering team, then challenged them to devise a way for rovers to navigate on alien planets.

Six months later, a fully autonomous vehicle was charting its course through Chile’s Mars-like Atacama Desert.

May’s full-scale rover field test marked the final stage of a StarTiger project code-named ‘Seeker’.

Standing for ‘Space Technology Advancements by Resourceful, Targeted and Innovative Groups of Experts and Researchers’, StarTiger involves a multidisciplinary team gathered at a single site, working against the clock to achieve a technology breakthrough.

 “Our expert team met at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK,” explained Gianfranco Visentin, head of ESA’s Automation and Robotics section.

“Their challenge was to demonstrate how a planetary rover – equipped with state-of-the-art autonomous navigation and decision-making software – could traverse 6 km of Mars-like environment and come back where it started.”

Mars rovers cannot be remotely ‘driven’. It takes radio signals up to 40 minutes to make a round trip between Mars and Earth. Instead, rovers are given instructions to carry out autonomously.

“ESA’s ExoMars rover, due to land on Mars in 2018, will have state-of-the-art autonomy,” added Gianfranco.

“However, it will not travel more than 150 m per individual ‘Sol’ – a martian day – or much more than 3 km throughout its mission.

ESO ALMA Image: Centaurus A in Infra-Red

This new image of Centaurus A combines ALMA and near-infrared observations of the massive elliptical radio galaxy. The green parts show gas coming towards us while more orange features depict gas moving away.

Picture: ESO / BEL/AFP/GettyImages