ESO Blog

31
Mar

A mysterious young and faint object revealed by the VLT

How do giant planets form? The latest generation of sub-millimetre interferometric arrays and infrared instruments at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have recently provided an unprecedented direct view of protoplanetary discs — the birth place of planets. Thanks to these facilities, astronomers have found over the past few...
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03
Feb

Introducing MAGPI: Australia’s first ESO Large Programme

The MAGPI Survey is an Australian-led ESO/VLT/MUSE Large Programme. MAGPI will map the properties of ~160 galaxies, elucidating what transformed galaxies during the Universe’s "middle ages” (~3-4 billion years ago).
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08
Jan

Revealing the first supermassive black holes with MWA and the VLT

Finding the first active supermassive black holes is one of the most exciting and yet challenging problems of extragalactic astronomy. These black holes are very rare, but they emit a considerable amount of light from their accretion disc and their very powerful radio jets. As such, they are...
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23
Nov

ESO by the numbers

Did you know that since the start of Australia's Strategic Partnership with ESO in 2017, Australian astronomers have submitted or been Co-investigators on a total of 638 observing proposals? Or that nearly 40% of these proposals have been successful? Statistics like these are now at the fingertips of...
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02
Nov

The Science of Small Things with a Big Telescope

There is never a dull moment when you do science with the ESO VLT. In 2018, thanks to ESO and ASTRO3D, I was fortunate while an ANU graduate student to visit the Paranal Observatory, and carry out observations of 69 dwarf galaxies using the FLAMES instrument.
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09
Sep

ESO Users Committee Update September 2020

This is an update from your ESO Users Committee (UC) representative, Caroline Foster. My role is to represent Australian ESO Users and act as a capillary link between ESO and the Australian community.
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20
Jul

Weighing up black holes with the NTT

We are engaged in The Southern Hemisphere Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Infrared Survey. Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies may be a young, fast-growing phase of active galactic nuclei (AGN).
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10
Jul

VLT Feels the Pull of a Giant Black Hole

Space is big. It’s so big that the brightest known object in the Universe can be so far away that it looks to us like a dim, red pinpoint as shown in the image above. But with the X-shooter instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, we’ve discovered that...
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15
Jun

Weighing up the Universe, using ASKAP and the VLT

The origin of Fast Radio Bursts remains a mystery, and yet that hasn't stopped us using them as powerful cosmological probes. In a recent paper in the prestigious journal Nature, a team led by A/Prof. Jean-Pierre Macquart from Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research...
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18
May

Using the VLTI to resolve some of the brightest southern hemisphere stars

Optical interferometry is tricky. Unlike radio interferometers, which can have telescope separations measured in kilometres (or even across the entire planet in the case of the Event Horizon Telescope!), combining light in the optical is a tad more difficult, requiring that light be brought to some central location...
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Contributors

Michael Murphy is the Australian representative on the ESO Science Technical Committee. Contact: [email protected]

Sarah Sweet is the Australian representative on the ESO Users Committee. Contact: [email protected]

Stuart Ryder is a Program Manager with AAL. Contact: [email protected]

Guest posts are also welcome – please submit these to [email protected]