The Milky Way glitters over ESO Paranal Observatory

The Milky Way glitters over Paranal Observatory atop Cerro Paranal in Chile's high Atacama Desert in this amazing image by ESO photo ambassador Yuri Beletsky. 

Here, two unit telescopes with Paranal's Very Large Telescope (VLT) take center stage.

Between the two telescopes are the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellenic Cloud, dwarf galaxies near our own Milky Way.

Meanwhile, the Coalsack Nebula can be spotted as a dark mark obscuring part of the Milky Way at upper left.

To see more amazing photos from the observatory, visit: Spectacular Cosmic Visions from ESO's Paranal Observatory 

Formation of a planetary system around the star HD169142

Image at 7 mm wavelength of the dusty disk around the star HD 169142 obtained with the Very Large Array (VLA) at 7 mm wavelength. 

The positions of the protoplanet candidates are marked with plus signs (+) (Osorio et al. 2014, ApJ, 791, L36). 

The insert in the upper right corner shows, at the same scale, the bright infrared source in the inner disk cavity, as observed with the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at 3.8 micron wavelength 

(Reggiani et al. 2014, ApJ, 792, L23).

Planets are formed from disks of gas and dust that orbit around young stars. Once the "seed" of the planet, composed of a small aggregate of dust, is formed, it will continue to gather material and it will carve out a cavity or gap in the disk along its orbital path.

This transitional stage between the original disk and the planetary system, difficult to study and as yet little known, is precisely what has been observed in the star HD169142 and is discussed in two articles published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Although in recent years more than seventeen hundred extrasolar planets have been discovered, few of them have been directly imaged, and so far we have never been able to capture an unequivocal image of an still-forming planet", says Mayra Osorio, researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) heading one of the articles.

"In HD 169142 we may be seeing indeed those seeds of gas and dust which will later become planets."

HD169142 is a young star with twice the mass of the Sun and whose disk extends up to two hundred and fifty astronomical units (an astronomical unit, or AU, is a unit equivalent to the distance between the Sun and the Earth: one hundred and fifty million kilometers).

The system is in an optimal orientation for the study of planet formation because the disk is seen face-on.

The first article explores the disk of HD169142 with the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, which can detect centimeter-sized dust grains.

The results, combined with infrared data which trace the presence of microscopic dust, reveal two gaps in the disk, one in the inner region (between 0.7 and 20 AU) and another, farther out and less developed, between 30 and 70 AU.

"This structure already suggested that the disk was being modified by two planets or sub-stellar objects, but, additionally, the radio data reveal the existence of a clump of material within the external gap, located approximately at the distance of Neptune's orbit, which points to the existence of a forming planet", says Mayra Osorio (IAA-CSIC). One (or two) companions around HD169142

The second study focused on searching for infrared sources in the gaps of the disk, using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT).

They found a bright signal in the inner gap, which could correspond to a still-forming planet or to a young brown dwarf (a sort of failed star that never reached the threshold mass to trigger the nuclear reactions characteristic of stars).

Infrared data did not, however, corroborate the presence of an object in the outer gap as radio observations suggested.

This non detection could be due to technical limitations: the researchers have calculated that an object with a mass between one tenth and 18 times the Jupiter's mass surrounded by a cold envelope may well remain undetected at the observed wavelength.

"In future observations we will be able to verify whether the disk harbors one or two objects. In any case, HD 169142 remains as a promising object since it is one of the few known transitional disks and it is revealing to us the environment where planets are formed", says Mayra Osorio (IAA-CSIC).

More information: M. Osorio et al. "Imaging the Inner and Outer Gaps of the Pre-Transitional Disk of HD 169142 at 7 mm". The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 791, L36. DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/791/2/L36

M. Reggiani et al. "Discovery of a companion candidate in the HD169142 transition disk and the possibility of multiple planet formation". The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 792, L23, DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/792/1/L23

Three Telescopes track laws of Nature 10 billion years ago

Astronomers have focused the three most powerful optical telescopes in the world on a single point in the sky to test one of Nature's fundamental laws.

An international team, led by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, observed a quasar, the extremely bright surroundings of a supermassive black hole, using the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and the W M Keck Observatory and Subaru Telescope, both in Hawaii.

The quasar light passed through three different galaxies, some 10, 9 and 8 billion years ago, on its way to Earth.

These galaxies absorbed a characteristic pattern of colours out of the quasar light, revealing the strength of electromagnetism, one of Nature's four fundamental forces, in the early and distant Universe.

"We spread the light very finely into its component colours, producing a rainbow with a `barcode' pattern of missing colours."

"We can then measure electromagnetism by `reading' this barcode," said Tyler Evans, Swinburne PhD student and lead author of the new study.

"We need to compare the barcode patterns from three telescopes to be sure they're right."

Previous studies, using a large number of quasars, had found hints that electromagnetism might be different in the distant reaches of the Universe, slightly weaker or slightly stronger than on Earth.

"If that's true, we'd need a completely new understanding of fundamental physics," Mr Evans said.

"So it's crucial to triple check whether and how the telescopes are distorting the barcodes."

By comparing the barcodes, the researchers found small differences between the telescopes.

"The beauty of our method is that we can also use the barcodes themselves to correct each telescope accurately," said Swinburne Associate Professor Michael Murphy, who co-authored the work.

"Once corrected, all three telescopes gave the same answer: electromagnetism hasn't changed, within a few parts per million, over 10 billion years. I think this is the most reliable measurement of its kind so far".

The team is now making similarly careful measurements in many other galaxies.

"With our new techniques and new quasar observations recently complete, we can make the most accurate check to see whether electromagnetism's strength really is changing or not," Associate Professor Murphy said.

More information: "The UVES Large Program for testing fundamental physics - III. Constraints on the fine-structure constant from 3 telescopes." T. M. Evans, M. T. Murphy, J. B. Whitmore, T. Misawa, M. Centurion, S. D'Odorico, S. Lopez, C. J. A. P. Martins, P. Molaro, P. Petitjean, H. Rahmani, R. Srianand, M. Wendt arXiv:1409.1923 [astro-ph.CO] arxiv.org/abs/1409.1923

Gamma-ray bursts (GRB): Afterglow discovery surprises scientists

Measurements of polarized light in the afterglow of GRB 120308A by the Liverpool Telescope and its RINGO2 instrument indicate the presence of a large-scale stable magnetic field linked with a young black hole, as shown in this illustration. 

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center /S. Wiessinger

Research from an international team of scientists led by the University of Leicester has discovered for the first time that one of the most powerful events in our universe, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB), behave differently than previously thought.

The study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, uses evidence from observation of a GRB to rule out most of the existing theoretical predictions concerning the afterglow of the explosions.

Klaas Wiersema

For Dr Klaas Wiersema, of the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy, it was handy that he was up in the middle of the night tending to his three-year-old son which is when he got the alert that a GRB had occurred.

He said: "When a suitable GRB is detected by a satellite, I get a text message on my phone, and then I have to very quickly tell the observatory in Chile exactly which observations I want them to take, and how.

"This is usually a rather stressed and frantic few hours of working, as fast as possible, on my laptop throughout our night-time, and I remember very well that my son, who was three at the time, was up a lot that night too, so I kept on running back and forth between my laptop, my phone to call the observatory in Chile, and my son's cot!"

The effort was worth it- and has led to scientific findings that will change theoretical understandings of the afterglows of GRBs.

Dr Wiersema explains: "About once per day, a short, very bright flash of gamma-rays (the most energetic form of light) is detected by satellites. These flashes are called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and take place in galaxies far away, when a massive star collapses at the end of its life.

"These GRBs are followed by a so-called "afterglow", slowly fading emission that can be seen at all wavelengths (including visible light), for a few days to weeks."

"We know that the afterglow emission is formed by a shockwave, moving at very high velocities, in which electrons are being accelerated to tremendous energies."

"These fast moving electrons then produce the afterglow light that we detect.

When a massive star dies it explodes as a supernova. 

The core of the star collapses into a black hole, and in care cases a jet is formed along the rotation axis of the newly formed black hole. 

Processes in this jet emits gamma radiation, which we observe as a so-called gamma-ray burst. 

Typically gamma-ray bursts last a few minutes. 

When the jet hits material surrounding the dying star an afterglow is formed. 

New observations of the degree of polarisation of the afterglow light has shown that the afterglow behaves differently than expected 

Credit: NASA

"However, how this acceleration process actually works is very hard to study on Earth in laboratories, or using computer simulations."

"What we do, is study the polarised light of the afterglow using large optical telescopes, and special filters, that work much like the filters in Polaroid sunglasses."

Gamma-ray burst 121024A, as seen on the day of burst by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Only a week later the source had faded completely. 

Credit: Dr Klaas Wiersema, University of Leicester, UK and Dr Peter Curran, ICRAR.

Dr Wiersema says it is important to remember that light is a wave, when light is linearly polarised, it means that the wave vibrations lie in a plane; and when light is circularly polarised, it means that that this plane rotates on the sky.

He added: "Different theories for electron acceleration and light emission within the afterglow all predict different levels of linear polarisation, but theories all agreed that there should be no circular polarisation in visible light."

Peter Curran, ICRAR

"This is where we come in: we decided to test this by carefully measuring both the linear and circular polarisation of one afterglow, of GRB 121024A, detected by the Swift satellite."

"Using the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, we measured both the linear and circular polarisation of an afterglow with high accuracy."

"Much to our surprise we clearly detected circular polarisation, while theories predicted we should not see any at all."

"We believe that the most likely explanation is that the exact way in which electrons are accelerated within the afterglow shockwave is different from what we always thought."

"It is a very nice example of observations ruling out most of the existing theoretical predictions – exactly why observers like me are in this game!

More information: Paper: Circular polarisation in the optical afterglow of GRB 121024A, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13237

ESO VLT: Chance meeting creates celestial diamond ring

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured this eye-catching image of planetary nebula Abell 33. 

Created when an aging star blew off its outer layers, this beautiful blue bubble is, by chance, aligned with a foreground star, and bears an uncanny resemblance to a diamond engagement ring. 

This cosmic gem is unusually symmetric, appearing to be almost perfectly circular on the sky. 

Credit: ESO

Most stars with masses similar to that of our Sun will end their lives as white dwarfs—small, very dense, and hot bodies that slowly cool down over billions of years.

On the way to this final phase of their lives the stars throw their atmospheres out into the space and create planetary nebulae, colourful glowing clouds of gas surrounding the small, bright stellar relics.

This image, captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows the remarkably round planetary nebula Abell 33, located some 1500 light-years from Earth.

Being perfectly round is uncommon for these objects—usually something disturbs the symmetry and causes the planetary nebula to display irregular shapes.

The strikingly bright star located along the rim of the nebula creates a beautiful illusion in this VLT image.


This is just a chance alignment, the star, named HD 83535, lies in the foreground of the nebula about halfway between Earth and Abell 33, in just the right place to make this view even more beautiful.

Together, HD 83535 and Abell 33 create a sparkling diamond ring.

Spectrograph (FORS) instrument

The remnant of Abell 33's progenitor star, on its way to becoming a white dwarf, can be seen just slightly off-centre inside the nebula, visible as a tiny white pearl.

It is still bright, more luminous than our own Sun and emits enough ultraviolet radiation to make the bubble of expelled atmosphere glow.

Abell 33 is just one of the 86 objects included in astronomer George Abell's 1966 Abell Catalogue of Planetary Nebulae.

Abell also scoured the skies for galaxy clusters, compiling the Abell Catalogue of over 4000 of these clusters in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the sky.

This image uses data from the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) instrument attached to the VLT, which were acquired as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme.

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.

ESO MUSE: Creates 3D Views of the Universe - Video

A new telescope tool for peering into the cosmos and creating three-dimensional views of the universe has passed its first major test at the ESO observatory in Chile's Atacama desert.

After a decade of design and development, the tool, called the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), successfully captured its first images of deep space to create 3D views of the early universe.

Installed on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, MUSE can both study and image the depths of space.

"It has taken a lot of work by many people over many years," principle investigator Roland Bacon of the Lyon Astrophysics Research Center (CRAL) in France said in a statement.

"This seven-ton collection of optics, mechanics, and electronics is now a fantastic time machine for probing the early universe."

This colour composite of the unusual polar ring galaxy NGC 4650A was created from data from the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

The MUSE instrument, which went online in March 2014, splits the light from each part of the galaxy into component colors to show the chemical and physical properties of each point.

Credit: ESO/MUSE consortium/R. Bacon

MUSE uses 24 spectrographs to split light into its component colours (spectra) to assemble images and spectra of different regions of the sky.

Studies of these spectra can provide insight to astronomers about the composition and movements of various objects.

MUSE also creates a 3D image of objects from the light waves it receives. Known as Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS), the technique allows astronomers to study the properties of different regions of an object at the same time.

Applying the technique to galaxies, for instance, can reveal not only their chemical composition but also details about their rotation.

ESO VLT: The dusty heart of Circinus, an active galaxy

Nuclear region of the Circinus galaxy. 

The right image shows the inner 1000 light years of the Circinus galaxy. 

Blinding light and gaseous material are ejected by the active nucleus (located at the black box). 

They escape only along a conical region towards the northwest (upper right part of the image), leading to the white V-shaped structure in this image. 

Along other directions, the nuclear region is hidden by dense gas and dust.

This obscuring dust has now been investigated with unprecedented detail with the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer. 

The false-colour model image on the left shows the dust emission and corresponds to the region marked by the black box in the right image.

The emission comes from a relatively thin, disk-like structure (white) as well as dust elongated perpendicular to it. 

The disk is also seen by water emission (red-green-blue line). 

The dust emission is more absorbed towards the southeast (bottom left) than the northwest (top right), illustrated by the change from violet to green colours. 

Credit: Konrad Tristram; Right: NASA HST, STScI.

An international research team led by Konrad Tristram from the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, obtained the most detailed view so far of the warm dust in the environment of a supermassive black hole in an active galaxy.

Konrad Tristram

The observations of the Circinus galaxy show, for the first time, that the dust directly illuminated by the central engine of the active galaxy is located in two distinct components: an inner warped disk and a surrounding larger distribution of dust.

Most likely, the larger component is responsible for most of the obscuration of the inner regions close to the supermassive black hole.

Such a configuration is significantly more complex than the simple dusty doughnut, which has been favoured for the last few decades.

The results are published in the current issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics.

In active galactic nuclei, enormous amounts of energy are released due to the feeding of the supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy.

Such black holes have masses of a million or billion times the mass of the sun.

The matter spiralling in onto the black hole becomes so hot and luminous that it outshines its entire galaxy with billions of stars. The huge amounts of energy released also affect the surrounding galaxy.

Active galactic nuclei are therefore thought to play an important role in the formation and evolution of galaxies and hence in the formation of the universe as presently seen.

Using the MIDI instrument at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer in the Atacama Desert of Chile, the research team obtained an unprecedented clear view of the warm dust in the nucleus of the Circinus galaxy.

At a distance of only 13 million light years, the Circinus galaxy contains one of the closest and brightest active galactic nuclei.

"We obtained at least twice the amount of interferometric data than for any other galaxy", proudly reports Konrad Tristram from the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), the lead author of the paper.

"Our observations make the Circinus galaxy by far the best observed extragalactic source in optical and infrared interferometry."

By combining the light of two telescopes, the interferometric observations increase the resolution to that of a telescope of 92 meters in diameter.

In the case of the Circinus galaxy, the scientists could, for the first time, show that the emission of the nuclear dust comes from two distinct components, an inner disk-like component and an extended component significantly elongated in polar direction.

The dust disk in the Circinus galaxy has a size of about 3 light years and agrees well with a warped molecular disk revealed by water emission.

More information: "The Dusty Torus in the Circinus Galaxy: A Dense Disk and the Torus Funnel," K. R. W. Tristram, L. Burtscher, W. Jaffe, K. Meisenheimer, S. F. Hönig, M. Kishimoto, M. Schartmann, and G. Weigelt, 2014, Astronomy & Astrophysics. dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201322698; Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/1312.4534

ESA Rosetta: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko re-appears from the gloom

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as observed on Februaray 28th, 2014, with the ESO's Very Large Telescope. 

Left: To make the comet visible, the scientists superposed several exposures. 

The images were shifted to compensate for the comet's motion. 

The stars appear as broadly smudged lines. Right: Subtracting the starry backgrouns reveals the comet. 

Credit: MPS/ESO

It's back! After comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko had disappeared behind the Sun and out of the Earth's view last year in October, the target comet of ESA's Rosetta mission can now be seen again.

In the most recent image obtained by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) with the help Very Large Telescope on February 28th, 2014, the comet presents itself brighter than expected for the nucleus alone.

This suggests that frozen ice is already beginning to vaporise and form a very thin atmosphere.

In August, the spacecraft Rosetta will rendezvous with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and accompany it on its journey around the Sun until at least the end of 2015.

To obtain a measurable image of the comet from a distance of 740 million kilometers, the scientists superposed several exposures taken at slightly different times.

Before, the images were shifted to compensate for the comet's motion.

The stars in the background therefore appear as broadly smudged lines. Subtracting the starry background then revealed the comet: a tiny dot in space.

For researchers, this tiny dot carries valuable information.

Already 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is approximately 50 percent brighter than in the last images from October 2013.

While the comet has moved another 50 million kilometers closer to Earth in this time (and 80 million kilometers closer to the Sun), the increase in brightness cannot be explained by the smaller distance alone.

"The new image suggests that 67P is beginning to emit gas and dust at a relatively large distance from the Sun", says Colin Snodgrass from the MPS.

Colin Snodgrass

This confirms a study presented by Snodgrass and his colleagues last year in which they had compared the comet's brightness as recorded during its previous orbits around the Sun.

The calculations showed that already in March 2014 its activity would be measurable from Earth.

In the coming months, the researchers will continue to monitor how the comet's brightness develops in close collaboration with ESA.

The data will help to assess what conditions await Rosetta upon arrival in August.

ESO MUSE: Powerful 3D spectrograph successfully installed on VLT

This view shows how the new MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope gives a innovative three-dimensional depiction of a distant galaxy. 

For each part of the galaxy the light has been split up into its component colours -- revealing not only the motions of different parts of the galaxy but also clues to its chemical composition and other properties. 

Credit: ESO /MUSE consortium /R. Bacon/L. Calçada

Following testing and preliminary acceptance in Europe in September 2013, MUSE was shipped to ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

It was reassembled at the base camp before being carefully transported to its new home at the VLT, where it is now installed on Unit Telescope 4.

MUSE is the latest of the second generation instruments for the VLT (the first two were X-shooter and KMOS and the next, SPHERE, will follow shortly).

The leader of the team and principal investigator for the instrument, Roland Bacon (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, France), expressed his feelings: "It has taken a lot of work by many people over many years, but we have done it!

It seems strange that this seven-tonne collection of optics, mechanics and electronics is now a fantastic time machine for probing the early Universe."

"We are very proud of the achievement—MUSE will remain a unique instrument for years to come."

MUSE instrument on its VLT Nasmyth platform

MUSE's science goals include delving into the early epochs of the Universe to probe the mechanisms of galaxy formation and studying both the motions of material in nearby galaxies and their chemical properties.

It will have many other applications, ranging all the way from studies of the planets and satellites in the Solar System, through the properties of star-forming regions in the Milky Way and out to the distant Universe.

As a unique and powerful tool for discovery MUSE uses 24 spectrographs to separate light into its component colours to create both images and spectra of selected regions of the sky.

It creates 3D views of the Universe with a spectrum for each pixel as the third dimension.

During the subsequent analysis the astronomer can move through the data and study different views of the object at different wavelengths, just like tuning a television to different channels at different frequencies.

MUSE instrument on its VLT Nasmyth platform

MUSE couples the discovery potential of an imaging device with the measuring capabilities of a spectrograph, while taking advantage of the much better image sharpness provided by adaptive optics.

The instrument is mounted on Unit Telescope 4 of the VLT, which is currently being converted into a fully adaptive telescope.

Since the start of 2014, Bacon and the rest of the MUSE integration and commissioning team at Paranal have recorded the MUSE story in a series of blog posts which can be followed here.

The team will present the first results from MUSE at the forthcoming 3D2014 workshop at ESO in Garching bei München, Germany.

"A muse is there to inspire. Indeed, MUSE has inspired us for many years and will continue to do so," says Bacon in a blog post on the first light.

"No doubt many astronomers from all over the world will also be charmed by our MUSE." Bacon reported.

ESO VLT: Two different gas clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud

ESO's Very Large Telescope has captured a detailed view of a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud -- one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

This sharp image reveals two glowing clouds of gas. NGC 2014 (right) is irregularly shaped and red and its neighbour, NGC 2020, is round and blue.

These odd and very different forms were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly. Credit: ESO

ESO's Very Large Telescope has captured an intriguing star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud—one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

This sharp image reveals two distinctive glowing clouds of gas: Red-hued NGC 2014, and its blue neighbour NGC 2020.

While they are very different, they were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly.

This image was taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile—the best place in the southern hemisphere for astronomical observing.

But even without the help of telescopes like the VLT, a glance towards the southern constellation of Dorado (The Swordfish or Dolphinfish) on a clear, dark night reveals a blurry patch which, at first sight, appears to be just like a cloud in the Earth's atmosphere.

At least, this may have been explorer Ferdinand Magellan's first impression during his famous voyage to the southern hemisphere in 1519.

Although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines before his return, his surviving crew announced the presence of this cloud and its smaller sibling when they returned to Europe, and these two small galaxies were later named in Magellan's honour.

However, they were undoubtedly seen by both earlier European explorers and observers in the southern hemisphere, although they were never reported.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is actively producing new stars. Some of its star-forming regions can even be seen with the naked eye, for example, the famous Tarantula Nebula.

However, there are other smaller—but no less intriguing—regions that telescopes can reveal in intricate detail. This new VLT image explores an oddly mismatched pair: NGC 2014 and NGC 2020.

The pink-tinged cloud on the right, NGC 2014, is a glowing cloud of mostly hydrogen gas.

It contains a cluster of hot young stars. The energetic radiation from these new stars strips electrons from the atoms within the surrounding hydrogen gas, ionising it and producing a characteristic red glow.

This zoom video starts with a wide view of the Milky Way and ends with a close-up look at a pair of mysterious glowing gas clouds in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud — NGC 2014, and NGC 2020, both in the southern constellation of Dorado (The Swordfish).

The final view of these clouds was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. 

Credit: ESO/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Music: John Dyson

In addition to this strong radiation, massive young stars also produce powerful stellar winds that eventually cause the gas around them to disperse and stream away.

To the left of the main cluster, a single brilliant and very hot star seems to have started this process, creating a cavity that appears encircled by a bubble-like structure called NGC 2020.

The distinctive blueish colour of this rather mysterious object is again created by radiation from the hot star—this time by ionising oxygen instead of hydrogen.

Spitzer discovers young stars with a 'hula hoop'

In this artist's impression, a disk of dusty material leftover from star formation girds two young stars like a hula hoop. 

As the two stars whirl around each other, they periodically peek out from the disk, making the system appear to "blink" every 93 days. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days.

Called YLW 16A, the system likely consists of three developing stars, two of which are surrounded by a disk of material left over from the star-formation process.

As the two inner stars whirl around each other, they periodically peek out from the disk that girds them like a hula hoop.

The hoop itself appears to be misaligned from the central star pair, probably due to the disrupting gravitational presence of the third star orbiting at the periphery of the system.

The whole system cycles through bright and faint phases, with the central stars playing a sort of cosmic peek-a-boo as the tilted disk twirls around them.

It is believed that this disk should go on to spawn planets and the other celestial bodies that make up a solar system.

Spitzer observed infrared light from YLW 16A, emitted by the warmed gas and dust in the disk that still swathes the young stars.

Other observations came from the ground-based 2MASS survey, as well as from the NACO instrument at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

NB: NACO is an Adaptive Optics facility producing images as sharp as if taken in space. It is also equipped with a spectrometer, polarimeter, coronographs, etc

YLW 16A is the fourth example of a star system known to blink in such a manner, and the second in the same star-forming region Rho Ophiuchus.

The finding suggests that these systems might be more common than once thought.

Blinking star systems with warped disks offer scientists a way to study how planets form in these environments.

The planets can orbit one or both of the stars in the binary star system. The famous science fictional planet Tatooine in "Star Wars" orbits two stars, hence its double sunsets.

Such worlds are referred to as circumbinary planets. Astronomers can record how light is absorbed by planet-forming disks during the bright and faint phases of blinking stellar systems, which in turn reveals information about the materials that comprise the disk.

"These blinking systems offer natural probes of the binary and circumbinary planet formation process," said Peter Plavchan, a scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., and lead author of a new paper accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

More information: arxiv.org/abs/1304.2398

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. 

ESA's ESO VLT: Observations Identifies Rare "Green Bean" Galaxy

A new galaxy class has been identified using observations from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Gemini South telescope, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).

Nicknamed "green bean galaxies" because of their unusual appearance, these galaxies glow in the intense light emitted from the surroundings of monster black holes and are amongst the rarest objects in the Universe.

Read the full Research Paper Here

Many galaxies have a giant black hole at their centre that causes the gas around it to glow. However, in the case of green bean galaxies, the entire galaxy is glowing, not just the centre.

These new observations reveal the largest and brightest glowing regions ever found, thought to be powered by central black holes that were formerly very active but are now switching off.

Astronomer Mischa Schirmer of the Gemini Observatory had looked at many images of the distant Universe, searching for clusters of galaxies, but when he came across one object in an image from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope he was stunned -- it looked like a galaxy, but it was bright green.

It was unlike any galaxy he had ever seen before, something totally unexpected. He quickly applied to use ESO's Very Large Telescope to find out what was creating the unusual green glow.

"ESO granted me special observing time at very short notice and just a few days after I submitted my proposal, this bizarre object was observed using the VLT," says Schirmer.

"Ten minutes after the data were taken in Chile, I had them on my computer in Germany. I soon refocused my research activities entirely as it became apparent that I had come across something really new."

The new object, J2240, lies in the constellation of Aquarius (The Water Bearer) and its light has taken about 3.7 billion years to reach Earth.

After the discovery, Schirmer's team searched through a list of nearly a billion other galaxies and found 16 more with similar properties, which were confirmed by observations made at the Gemini South telescope.

General Background

In many galaxies the material around the supermassive black hole at the centre gives off intense radiation and ionises the surrounding gas so that it glows strongly.

These glowing regions in typical active galaxies are usually small, up to 10% of the diameter of the galaxy. However, the team's observations showed that in the case of J2240, and other green beans spotted since, it is truly huge, spanning the entire object.

J2240 displays one of the biggest and brightest such regions ever found. Ionised oxygen glows bright green, which explains the strange colour that originally caught Schirmer's attention.

"These glowing regions are fantastic probes to try to understand the physics of galaxies -- it's like sticking a medical thermometer into a galaxy far, far away," says Schirmer.

"Usually, these regions are neither very large nor very bright, and can only be seen well in nearby galaxies.

However, in these newly discovered galaxies they are so huge and bright that they can be observed in great detail, despite their large distances."

ESA ESO VLT Image: Thor's Helmet Nebula

This ESO VLT image of the Thor’s Helmet Nebula was taken on the occasion of ESO’s 50th Anniversary, 5 October 2012, with the help of Brigitte Bailleul.

The observations were broadcast live over the internet from the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

This object, also known as NGC 2359, lies in the constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog).

The helmet-shaped nebula is around 15,000 light-years away from Earth and is over 30 light-years across.

The helmet is a cosmic bubble, blown as the wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's centre sweeps through the surrounding molecular cloud.

Image: ESO/B. Bailleul

ESA ESO's VLT Captures Milky Way in the Southern Sky

The Milky Way arches across this rare 360-degree panorama of the night sky above the Paranal platform, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

The image was made from 37 individual frames with a total exposure time of about 30 minutes, taken in the early morning hours.

The Moon is just rising and the zodiacal light shines above it, while the Milky Way stretches across the sky opposite the observatory.

Credit: ESO/H.H.Heyer

NASA Chandra X-ray Image: Ring of Fire

This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151.

X-rays (blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are combined with optical data (yellow) showing positively charged hydrogen (H II) from observations with the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma.

The red ring shows neutral hydrogen detected by radio observations with the NSF's Very Large Array.

This neutral hydrogen is part of a structure near the center of NGC 4151 that has been distorted by gravitational interactions with the rest of the galaxy, and includes material falling towards the center of the galaxy.

The yellow blobs around the red ellipse are regions where star formation has recently occurred.

A recent study shows the X-ray emission probably was caused by an outburst powered by the supermassive black hole located in the white region in the center of the galaxy. Evidence for this idea comes from the elongation of the X-rays running from the top left to the bottom right and details of the X-ray spectrum.

There are also signs of interactions between a central source and the surrounding gas, particularly the yellow arc of H II emission located above and to the left of the black hole.

NGC 4151 is located about 43 million light years away from the Earth and is one of the nearest galaxies that contains an actively growing black hole. Because of this proximity, it offers one of the best chances of studying the interaction between an active supermassive black hole and the surrounding gas of its host galaxy.

Such interaction, or feedback, is recognized to play a key role in the growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. If the X-ray emission in NGC 4151 originates from hot gas heated by the outflow from the central black hole, it would be strong evidence for feedback from active black holes to the surrounding gas on galaxy scales.

This would resemble the larger scale feedback, observed on galaxy cluster scales, from active black holes interacting with the surrounding gas, as seen in objects like the Perseus Cluster.

Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/J.Wang et al.; Optical: Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma/Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

ESA ESO APEX: Hydrogen Peroxide found in Space

Hydrogen peroxide is thought to form in space on the surfaces of cosmic dust grains - very fine particles similar to sand and soot - when hydrogen (H) is added to oxygen molecules (O2).

A further reaction of the hydrogen peroxide with more hydrogen is one way to produce water (H2O).

This new detection of hydrogen peroxide will therefore help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the Universe.

The discovery gives clues about the chemical link between two molecules critical for life: water and oxygen.

On Earth, hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in the chemistry of water and ozone in our planet's atmosphere, and is familiar for its use as a disinfectant or to bleach hair blonde. Now it has been detected in space by astronomers using the ESO-operated APEX telescope in Chile.

An international team of astronomers made the discovery with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), situated on the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. They observed a region in our galaxy close to the star Rho Ophiuchi, about 400 light-years away.

The region contains very cold (around -250 degrees Celsius), dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust, in which new stars are being born. The clouds are mostly made of hydrogen, but contain traces of other chemicals, and are prime targets for astronomers hunting for molecules in space.

Telescopes such as APEX, which make observations of light at millimetre- and submillimetre-wavelengths, are ideal for detecting the signals from these molecules.

NASA Hubble finds Jupiter's hidden Stripe

New Hubble images reveal what happened to one of Jupiter’s main cloud belts: It’s hiding behind ammonia clouds.

“Weather forecast for Jupiter’s Southern Equatorial Belt: cloudy with a chance of ammonia,” planetary scientist Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado said in a press release Wednesday.

The gas giant’s characteristic band of dark clouds started fading late last year and had vanished completely by early May, 2010.

Images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on June 7 — just over three days after an unknown object smacked into the planet — found a layer of white ammonia ice crystal clouds. The ammonia clouds float at a higher altitude than the missing brown clouds, obscuring them from view.

The images show a preview of what’s to come for the dark stripe, too. A chain of dark spots along the boundary of Jupiter’s south tropical zone peek through the white cloud layer as the ammonia thins and dissipates.

“The Hubble images tell us these spots are holes resulting from localized downdrafts. We often see these types of holes when a change is about to occur,” said planetary scientist Amy Simon-Miller of NASA.

The clouds blocking the famous equatorial stripe should clear out similarly in a couple of months, the team predicts.

“The Southern Equatorial Belt last faded in the early 1970s. We haven’t been able to study this phenomenon at this level of detail before,” Simon-Miller added. “The changes of the last few years are adding to an extraordinary database on dramatic cloud changes on Jupiter.”



The images also provided clues to the identity of the mystery object that hit Jupiter on June 3.

A lack of dark debris at the impact site, which would have been kicked up by the object exploding beneath the clouds, suggests that the object was relatively small and burned up in Jupiter’s atmosphere like a meteor.

“Hubble was only one of several observatories that looked for signs of Jupiter’s impact scar, with more results on their way,” planetary scientist Leigh Fletcher of the University of Oxford noted on Twitter. “Gemini, Keck, VLT and IRTF were all racing to find signs of the impact within hours of the event taking place.”