Thor’s Helmet Nebula
The above image of Thor’s Helmet Nebula was chosen as the winner of a competition during ESO’s 50th anniversary celebration. The nebula is located roughly…
European Southern Observatory News
New Image of the Seagull Nebula
A close-up view of the head of the Seagull Nebula, which is located roughly 3,700 light-years away from Earth, was captured in this new image…
A New Image of The Pencil Nebula
A new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the Pencil Nebula, which…
Mysterious Lithium-Rich Star in Messier 4
Using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, astronomers captured a new image of globular star cluster…
Sugar Molecules Found in Gas Surrounding Sun-Like Star
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a team of astronomers discovered molecules of a simple form of sugar in the gas surrounding a young binary…
Detailed Image of Barnard 59, The Mouthpiece of the Pipe Nebula
Located about 600–700 light-years away from Earth in the Ophiuchus constellation, Barnard 59 forms the mouthpiece of the Pipe Nebula and can be seen in…
ESO’s New Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 1187
Captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope, this new image from the European Southern Observatory is the most detailed ever taken of spiral galaxy NGC 1187,…
VLT Reveals That O Stars, Which Drive the Evolution of Galaxies, Don’t Live Alone
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope to study a sample of 71 O-type single stars and stars in pairs in six nearby young star clusters in…
Popular VISTA Image of the Orion Nebula
Taken by ESO’s VISTA survey telescope, this popular image shows a wide-field view of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), which resides about 1,350 light-years from…
Quasar 3C 279 Shown in Unprecedented Sharpness
Using three telescopes (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in Chile, Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii, and the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) in Arizona) to create an interferometer,…
Scientists Detect Dark Galaxies for the First Time
Using the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, an international team of scientists believes that they have detected dark galaxies by observing their glow as…
Gas Cloud Headed Towards Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
While monitoring the movement of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, astronomers discovered an ionized gas cloud with a…
Detailed Images of NGC 6357 From ESO’s Very Large Telescope
New images from European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope show detailed images of NGC 6357, which contains a cluster of high-mass stars whose inhabitants are…
APEX Provides Images of Dust near Orion’s Belt
New images captured by the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope show clouds of cosmic dust threaded through the nebula Messier 78. The images were created by…
No Evidence of Dark Matter Around the Sun
A new study is going against widely believed theories about dark matter. While using telescopes including the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory,…
Researchers Analyze Earthshine for Life in the Universe
By analyzing earthshine and observing the Moon using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, researchers are using Earth as a benchmark for future discoveries of life elsewhere…
Astronomers Combine Hundreds of Images of Carina Nebula to Reveal Thousands of Stars in Stellar Nursery
Astronomers have combined hundreds of images, including ones in the infrared spectrum, to provide the most detailed view of the Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery…
Team of International Scientists Discover New Super-Earth
Using public data from the European Southern Observatory with measurements from the Keck Observatory’s High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph and the Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at…