Clearer Infrared Vision

The Very Large Telescope at ESO in Chile, has a new infrared sensor called ERIS. This ERIS image reveals the inner region of the galaxy NGC 1097, showing the gaseous and dusty ring that lies at the very center of the galaxy. The bright spots in the ring are stellar nurseries. The image was taken using four different filters by ERIS’s infrared imager, the Near Infrared Camera System (NIX). ERIS will be an upgrade from the pevious NACO imager.

Video Credit: ESO

A Ground-Based View of a GRB


Last week, I posted a view of a recently observed Gamma Ray Burst as seen by the X-ray Telescope abort the Swift satellite. This is what it looked like as seen by the Very Large Telescope at the European Souther Observatory in Chile. The GRB is the red spot near the middle of the image.

After the initial bright flash of a GRB has faded, the afterglow shines at longer wavelengths of visible and infrared light. The team at ESO was able to gather data to show  burst originated from an extremely distant galaxy when the universe was only 6% of its current age. This was one of the oldest GRB yet detected.

Image Credit: ESO

Sharpless 2-274

ESO’s Very Large Telescope images the Medusa NebulaESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile captured this image of the Medusa Nebula (also known Abell 21 and Sharpless 2-274). As the star at the heart of this nebula made its final transition into the final stage of its existence, it blew off its outer layers into space, forming this colorful cloud. The Sun will go through a similar process in a few billion years.

Image Credit: ESO

Two Views of M83

This video fades between views of Messier 83 in visible light and infrared images captured at European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The dust that obscures many stars becomes nearly transparent in the infrared image. That image may seem less dramatic, but it shows a swarm of new stars that are otherwise invisible.

Video Credit: ESO / M. Gieles
Acknowledgement: Mischa Schirmer

The Medusa Nebula

ESO’s Very Large Telescope images the Medusa NebulaESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile captured this image of the Medusa Nebula (also known Abell 21 and Sharpless 2-274). As the star at the heart of this nebula made its final transition into the final stage of its existence, it blew off its outer layers into space, forming this colorful cloud. The Sun will go through a similar process in a few billion years.

Image Credit: ESO

A 3D View of a Galactic Merger

This animation shows a #D rendering of a gas halo observed by ESO’s Very Large Telescope superimposed over an older image of a galaxy merger obtained with ESO’s Atacama Large Millimeter Array. The halo of hydrogen gas is shown in blue, and the ALMA data is shown in orange. The halo is bound to the galaxy, which contains a quasar at its center. The gas in the halo provides the perfect food source for the supermassive black hole at the centre of the quasar.

The redshift on these objects is 6.2, meaning we see them as they were 12.8 billion years ago.

Video Credit: ESO

Missing Lithium

The globular star cluster Messier 54Most of the light chemical element lithium now present in the Universe was produced along with hydrogen and helium during the Big Bang but in much smaller quantities. Astronomers have calculated how much lithium they expect to find in the early Universe and from this work out how much they should see in old stars. But the calculations don’t match the observed values. There is about one-third of lithium in stars that we expect to see in our galaxy, The Milky Way.

This new image from the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory the globular cluster Messier 54, a star cluster that doesn’t belong to the Milky Way but is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. A team of astronomers has used the VLT to measure how much lithium there is in a selection of stars in Messier 54. They find that the levels are close to those in the Milky Way. So, whatever it is that got rid of the lithium seems not to be specific to the Milky Way.

Image Credit: ESO

Visible and Invisible

Cat's PawThis comparison of infrared and visible views of the Cat’s Paw Nebula uses images taken by two of the telescopes belonging to the European Southern Observatory. The visible light image (right) was taken with the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla in Chile. The new infrared image (left) was taken with the VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. In the infrared, the dust that hides many stars is almost transparent, allowing many more stars to be seen.

Image Credit: ESO / J. Emerson / VISTA
Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

Looking at an Exoplanet

The SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory has captured a series of images showing the passage of the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b around its parent star. SPHERE observed Beta Pictoris b directly, seeing it emerge from its passage in front of its parent star. The planet orbits its star at about the same distance as between the Sun and Saturn, approximately 1.3 billion km, making it the most closely orbiting exoplanet ever to have been directly imaged. In spite of the distance from its star, planet is still hot, around 1500 C.

Image Credit: ESO