Pressemeddelelser

5. januar 1990: Is there - or is there not - a pulsar in Supernova 1987A? This is one of the main enigmas in current astrophysical research, and nearly three years after the explosion of the first naked-eye supernova (see eso8704, eso8705, eso8706, eso8711 and eso8802) in four hundred years, the answer is still not known.

26. oktober 1989: An old dream of ground-based astronomers has finally come true, thanks to the joint development of a revolutionary new technique, adaptive optics, by ESO and ONERA [1], LdM [2] and Observatoire de Paris in France.

25. juli 1989: The European Southern Observatory and R.E.O.S.C. Optique (Recherches et études d'optique et de sciences connexes), located at Ballainvilliers near Paris, France, have reached agreement on a contract for the polishing of four giant mirror blanks for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) (see eso8717 and eso8808).

6. juli 1989: Recent studies at the European Southern Observatory indicate that the formation of a new star is a dramatic process which may be more complex than most astronomers believed only a few years ago.

30. maj 1989: On May 11, 1989, Richard M. West at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, Fed.Rep.Germany, found a new comet in a photographic plate obtained on March 14 by night assistant Guido Pizarro with the 1-m Schmidt at the ESO La Silla Observatory. The blue-sensitive plate was exposed during 60 minutes and was centered in the southern constellation of Libra.

11. maj 1989: "First Light" with the ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) was obtained on March 23, 1989 (eso8903) during conditions of exceptionally good "seeing'' and the first images are probably the sharpest ever obtained with a large, ground-based telescope. A full account of the associated events will appear in the June 1989 issue of the ESO Messenger.

23. marts 1989: Early this morning, and during superb atmospheric conditions, the 3.5 m ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) produced its first astronomical images. They completely satisfy the high expectations towards this revolutionary high-tech telescope, the first of its kind in the world. This important milestone was passed less than seven years after the start of the NTT project in 1982 and at the end of a four-year construction phase (various aspects of the New Technology Telescope have been described in eso8801 and eso8805).

24. februar 1989: A recent announcement of the discovery of a pulsar in Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud has excited the world-wide astronomical community. New observations at the La Silla Observatory by a group of European astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the European Southern Observatory, however, do not confirm the reality of this object. More observations are now needed to settle this important question.

30. januar 1989: Everybody knows the Crab Nebula - that famous object in the northern constellation Taurus (The Bull). It is the remnant of a supernova explosion in the year 1054 and has been studied with all available astronomical techniques. But this nebula does not really resemble the animal whose name it carries! Whoever attached this name to it by the middle of the last century must have had a well developed imagination. Now a "real crab'' has been discovered, a nebula in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), which from its appearance on recent pictures made with telescopes at the La Silla Observatory would seem to have more right to associate with crustaceans. To avoid confusion, astronomers now refer to the new object as the "Southern Crab".

8. december 1988: Reinhold Häfner, visiting astronomer at the ESO La Silla Observatory, got his life's surprise when the star on the screen in front of him suddenly was gone. All the other stars were still visible, but this particular one had simply vanished.

12. september 1988: After a period of intense negotiation, the European Southern Observatory and Schott Glaswerke, Mainz (F.R.Germany) reached agreement about the delivery of four giant mirror blanks for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) (ESO8716). The blanks will be made of Zerodur, a glass ceramic material. Each will have a diameter of 8.2 metres, an area of more than 50 square metres and a thickness of only 17.5 centimetres.

9. september 1988: The most distant, individual star ever recorded was detected with a telescope at the ESO La Silla observatory on August 9, 1988. The object is an exploding star, a supernova, and is situated in an inconspicuous galaxy, itself a member of a distant cluster of galaxies. Additional observations indicate that the cluster, known as AC118, is at a distance of about 5 billion light-years (1 billion = 1000 million). Thus this supernova explosion occurred 5 billion years ago, or about the time when the Sun and the planets were born. Ever since then, the light emitted by this event has been travelling towards us, only arriving here now. It is the most distant supernova (ESO8802) observed so far.

28. juli 1988: Thanks to observations performed under near-perfect conditions at the La Silla observatory, it has been possible to show that the image of a distant quasar consists of no less than four components. Most appropriately, the object has now become known as the cloverleaf quasar. The peculiar image is due to the effect of "gravitational lensing", a phenomenon predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and explained at the end of this Press Release.

14. juli 1988: On the occasion of the successful completion of the optical figuring of the 3.58 m primary NTT mirror, the European Southern Observatory and Carl Zeiss, FRG, organize a Press Conference on Wednesday, July 13, 14.00 hours, at the Zeiss works in Oberkochen, near Stuttgart, FRG. There will be an opportunity to see the finished mirror on its computer controlled support system and information will be provided about the successful tests of the world's first, large active optics telescope.

8. juli 1988: A unique picture of Comet Halley has just been obtained by three astronomers with a telescope at the ESO La Silla observatory. An exposure time of almost 12 hours was necessary to show the structure of the famous comet in some detail at the present, very large distance of 1250 million kilometres.

19. maj 1988: The most massive stars may be less heavy than thought before. Recent observations with two telescopes at the ESO La Silla observatory have now shown that a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, long believed to be one of the most massive in existence, is in fact multiple and consists of a very compact cluster of hot, young stars. This discovery may have important implications for the theory of stellar birth and the determination of distances in the Universe.

16. marts 1988: New and exciting observations at the European Southern Observatory have probed the interstellar space around last year's bright supernova SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)

9. februar 1988: Last week, M/S “Cervo" arrived in the harbour of Valparaiso, Chile, with the packaged parts for the building which will house the ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT). Soon thereafter, the 350 ton load was hauled by road to the ESO La Silla observatory in the Atacama desert, some 600 km north of Santiago de Chile. Here, at one of the best astronomical sites on earth, the giant mechanical puzzle will now be put together to form one of the strangest telescope domes ever seen. The 3.5 m New Technology Telescope is the forerunner of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) (see eso8602 and eso8717). When the NTT is ready later this year, it will be the technologically most advanced telescope in the world.

8. december 1987: The representatives of the eight member states (Belgium, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland) agreed that the European Southern Observatory shall embark upon the realization of this marvelous instrument. This decision expresses Europe's confidence in the ambition of her astronomical community and the ingenuity of her high-tech industry; together they will ensure that Europe will be second to none in the exploration of the Universe for a long time to come. The VLT is an essential complement of Europe's astronomical research activities from space vehicles.

5. november 1987: The prototype of a new class of astrophysical phenomena has now been interpreted. Studies of other objects of the same type will open entirely new vistas in the exploration of the nature of distant galaxies.