Astronomers capture first image of a black hole

ESO, ALMA, and APEX contribute to paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87.

The International Astronomical Union Celebrates its 100th Anniversary with the Dark Skies for All Project

In 2019, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is celebrating its 100th anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, IAU100 is organising a year-long celebration to increase awareness of a century of astronomical discoveries as well as to support and improve the use of astronomy as a tool for education, development and diplomacy under the central theme “Under One Sky”. The centennial celebrations will stimulate worldwide interest in astronomy and science and will reach out to the global astronomical community, national science organisations, societies, policy-makers, students, families and the general public. The IAU100 activities will take place at global and regional levels, and especially at the national and local levels.

Editorial: Celebrate Astronomy in 2019 Under One Sky

Astronomy is a science that fascinates humankind. On the one hand astronomy touches on the largest philosophical questions facing us: Where do we come from? Where will we end? How did life arise? On the other hand, the beauty of the night sky is breathtaking, making astronomy quite attractive to the general public.

EU Particle Physics & Astronomy commit to the Research Data Revolution making the EOSC a reality

First quarter 2019 sees the exciting launch of one out of the five successfully retained INFRA-EOSC-04-2018 Cluster projects, which the European Commission supports with €16 million to boost the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

Antikythera’s shipwreck reveals new treasures

September 2017 – the island of Antikythera is under the spotlights again.

Revealed to the world at the beginning of the 20th century, the area saw a Greek ship sink more than 2,000 years ago. Among the luxury goods conveyed was an unusual object named after the island: the Antikythera Mechanism. This instrument made of a complex association of gears is the first astronomical device known in the world.

ALMA Observes Most Distant Oxygen Ever

A team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to detect glowing oxygen in a distant galaxy seen just 700 million years after the Big Bang. This is the most distant galaxy in which oxygen has ever been unambiguously detected, and it is most likely being ionised by powerful radiation from young giant stars. This galaxy could be an example of one type of source responsible for cosmic reionisation in the early history of the Universe.

Editorial – The wave of the century

With the announcement, on 11 February 2016, of the first detection ever of a gravitational wave by the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations, a New Astronomy, based on listening to the space-time vibrations, was born.

This long-awaited wave, 100 years after the theoretical prediction by Albert Einstein and 50 years after the first experimental efforts, arrived on Earth on 14 September 2015 and was finally perceived by humans with very smart “microphones”.

GalileoMobile: sharing astronomy in rural areas

Astronomy is a powerful and inspiring tool that can be used to motivate children to learn more about the world beyond their immediate neighbourhood, to encourage critical thinking, and engage them in different scientific disciplines. Although in our modern world there are many outreach programmes that bring astronomy to the classroom, most of them act in cities and rely heavily on internet connections. Thus, pupils and teachers in rural and remote areas rarely benefit from such efforts, making it difficult to know about modern space missions and world interpretations based on modern astronomy.

Touchdown! Rosetta’s Philae probe lands on comet

Rosetta is a space probe of the European Space Agency [ESA] to study the comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It is a joint mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. Rosetta’s Philae lander was built by a consortium led by the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), the Max Planck Society (MPG), the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). It is the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet. It is escorting the comet as they orbit the Sun together, and has deployed a lander to its surface. Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the time when the Sun and its planets formed. By studying the …

E-ELT gets off the ground

On June 2014, an explosion disturbed the silence of the Acatama Desert in Chile. Part of the 3000-metre peak of Cerro Armazones was blasted away in order to prepare a level platform that will host ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope [E-ELT], the largest optical/infrared telescope in the world.
The Atacama Desert is one of the favourite places for astronomers because of its exceptional conditions: the extremely arid mountain region, that is far away from any source of light pollution, offers a clear sky most of the time. This environment, chosen as the location for the future E-ELT, will also present new…

Rosetta has arrived at the comet

“We are delighted to announce finally ‘we are here’,” says Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General. After 10 years of travelling through the solar system, the ESA’ Rosetta spacecraft began its manoeuvre to orbit the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014. The first images of the Rosetta’s rendezvous with the comet were presented during an event held at ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany, on the same day.
Named after the Rosetta Stone, which was discovered in 1822 and whose engravings have helped to understand hieroglyphs, the Rosetta spacecraft was launched in 2004. The trajectory to reach…

NPA VII

The Nuclear Physics in Astronomy VII conference [NPA VII] will be held in York, United-Kingdom, from 18-22 May 2015.
NPA VII is the 7th edition of a series of conferences held every 2 years, organised by the EPS Nuclear Physics Division. The 2015 conference will bring together experts from different backgrounds: nuclear physicists, astronomers, cosmo-chemists, etc. They will discuss all topics related to astrophysics including the Big Bang, the latest observation and …