Outreach Activities

Outreach activities are carried out by the ESO Education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD). A wide range of programs and activities are used to meet the specific requirements of television, print and online media, such as press releases and broadcast material for the media. ePOD embraces a multimedia approach to public outreach, as seen in e.g., the ESOcast, the Hubblecast, Facebook pages etc. ePOD produces high-quality printed material such as brochures, books, annual reports, newsletters (Messenger, ST-ECF Newsletter, CAPjournal) posters, etc. 

In the past some impressive events have come out of the Department, such VLT First Light, Astronomy On-line, and the S-L 9 impact. Also famous educational campaigns such as Venus Transit, Science on Stage and Science in School have come out of the Department. ePOD also organises exhibitions. 

A large collection of nice photos can be found in the ESO Public Image Gallery.

As part of the Department, European outreach for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provides comprehensive information about this telescope and its scientific discoveries. Also the IAU Press Office is hosted as part of the Department.

LATEST NEWS STORIES

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  ESO 44/09 - Photo Release:

  Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine

  A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO.s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its "last meal" in unprecedented detail - a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters, strewn like glittering gems, churning inside Centaurus A.
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  ESO 43/09 - Science Release:

  Ticking Stellar Time Bomb Identified

  Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and its ability to obtain images as sharp as if taken from space, astronomers have made the first time-lapse movie of a rather unusual shell ejected by a "vampire star", which in November 2000 underwent an outburst after gulping down part of its companion's matter. This enabled astronomers to determine the distance and intrinsic brightness of the outbursting object. It appears that this double star system is a prime candidate to be one of the long-sought progenitors of the exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae, critical for studies of dark energy.
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  ESO 42/09 - Science Release:

  Exoplanets Clue to Sun's Curious Chemistry

  A ground-breaking census of 500 stars, 70 of which are known to host planets, has successfully linked the long-standing "lithium mystery" observed in the Sun to the presence of planetary systems. Using ESO's successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars that host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than "planet-free" stars. This finding does not only shed light on the lack of lithium in our star, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way of finding stars with planetary systems.
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