Mars rover Opportunity's vista includes long tracks - Video

This scene from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looks back toward part of the west rim of Endeavour Crater that the rover drove along, heading southward, during the summer of 2014. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

From a ridgeline viewpoint, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recently recorded a scene looking back over its own tracks made from nearly half a mile (more than 700 meters) of southbound driving.

Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) recorded the component images on Aug. 15, 2014, from an elevated portion of the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

A brief video places the scene into context with the rover's entire driving route of more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) since the mission's 2004 landing in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars.

The Opportunity mission has been investigating outcrops on the western rim of Endeavour Crater for three years.

The crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. During Opportunity's first decade on Mars and the 2004-to-2010 career of its twin, Spirit, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project yielded a range of findings proving wet environmental conditions on ancient Mars, some very acidic, others milder and more conducive to supporting life.



Overhead and on-the-ground views of the 25-mile journey NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has made since landing in 2004

ESO VLT: Deep in the Chilean Atacama Desert

Snow rarely falls in the Chilean Atacama Desert, where ESO's Very Large Telescope sits atop Cerro Paranal, a 8500-foot-high (2600-meter-high) mountain. 

The Atacama Desert is a very dry place with humidity often dropping below 10 percent and rainfall of less than 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) per year. 

This picture, taken shortly before sunrise, shows the landscape of the Atacama and the mountaintop domes of the VLT, and also the night sky. 

To the left of the VLT is a satellite trail, and to the right a meteor streaks through the sky. [View all images]

Orion nebula

The Orion nebula is about 1350 light years from Earth. This infrared image, taken by VISTA, shows young stars deep in the nebula, which are obscured by dust when observed with visible light.

This image, a composite of 10-minute exposures taken at different wavelengths in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, covers a region of sky about 1 by 1.5 degrees.

(Image: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA; acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit)

VISTA Captures Celestial Cat’s Hidden Secrets

Cat's Paw Nebula Click for More Pictures

ESO image taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, the glowing gas and dust clouds obscuring the view are penetrated by infrared light and some of the Cat’s hidden young stars are revealed.

Towards the heart of the Milky Way, 5500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion), the Cat’s Paw Nebula stretches across 50 light-years. In visible light, gas and dust are illuminated by hot young stars, creating strange reddish shapes that give the object its nickname.

A recent image by ESO’s Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the La Silla Observatory (eso1003) captured this visible light view in great detail. NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy.

VISTA, the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is the world’s largest survey telescope (eso0949). It works at infrared wavelengths, seeing right through much of the dust that is such a beautiful but distracting aspect of the nebula, and revealing objects hidden from the sight of visible light telescopes. Visible light tends to be scattered and absorbed by interstellar dust, but the dust is nearly transparent to infrared light.

Scottish scientists who reach for stars ‘are leading the world’

An image of the Flame Nebula that has given astronomers their most vivid picture of the star formation was offered up by the Scottish government yesterday as proof of the world-leading role maintained by the country’s scientists and researchers.

The photograph was taken by the Vista telescope at the European Southern Observatory, using technology designed and built at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh. That contribution was symbolic of the global importance of the country’s research base, said Anne Glover, the Scottish government’s chief scientific adviser.

“In every area of science Scotland outperforms the world average; our performance is truly stunning for a nation of only five million people,” Professor Glover said. “This is a country full of potential for those in science, engineering and technology.”

Professor Glover was speaking at the presentation of a report that purports to demonstrate the continuing success of home-grown scientists and engineers by comparing rates of publication of academic studies, and by collating the numbers of citations achieved by Scottish researchers in articles published by their peers from other countries.

The 120-page document showed that in sciences as diverse as medicine, agriculture and biology, Scotland has achieved 1.8 per cent of the world’s academic citations, from a population share of less than 0.1 per cent. Scotland even led the field in space sciences, Professor Glover said, though more dogs than Scots have experienced space travel so far.

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VISTA comes online (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy)

A new telescope - VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) - has just started it's working life at ESO's Paranal Observatory and has made its first release of pictures.

VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths and is the world's largest telescope dedicated to mapping the sky.

Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. Spectacular new images of the Flame Nebula, the centre of our Milky Way galaxy and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster show that it is working extremely well.

VISTA is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions.

VISTA's main mirror is 4.1 metres across and is the most highly curved mirror of this size and quality ever made - its deviations from a perfect surface are less than a few thousandths of the thickness of a human hair - and its construction and polishing presented formidable challenges.

VISTA was conceived and developed by a consortium of 18 universities in the United Kingdom [1] led by Queen Mary, University of London and became an in-kind contribution to ESO as part of the UK's accession agreement. The telescope design and construction were project-managed by the Science and Technology Facilities Council's UK Astronomy Technology Centre (STFC, UK ATC).

Provisional acceptance of VISTA was formally granted by ESO at a ceremony at ESO's Headquarters in Garching, Germany, attended by representatives of Queen Mary, University of London and STFC, on 10 December 2009 and the telescope will now be operated by ESO.

"VISTA is a unique addition to ESO's observatory on Cerro Paranal. It will play a pioneering role in surveying the southern sky at infrared wavelengths and will find many interesting targets for further study by the Very Large Telescope, ALMA and the future European Extremely Large Telescope," says Tim de Zeeuw, the ESO Director General.

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VISTA: The Flame Nebula in the Constellation of Orion

The Flame Nebula, a spectacular star-forming cloud of gas and dust in the constellation of Orion.

The image was taken by the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (Vista), based at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Picture: ESO / EPA