ESOcast SD

Milky Way Fly-through (Europe to the Stars clip)

ESOcast 45 -- Reaching Out -- is the fifth special episode of this series. In it we focus on ESO's mission of curiosity, wonder and inspiration, proclaimed through cooperation and outreach. Indeed, cooperation has always been the basis for ESO's success, ever since the organisation was founded fifty years ago. Together, ESO's Member States enable the best possible astronomical science at the world's largest observatories. ESO also works closely with industry, universities and research institutes around the world in developing state-of-the-art technologies. Furthermore, through engagement with the public, ESO provides countless ways to participate in the discovery of the cosmos, inviting everyone to join this exciting adventure.

Leading up to ESO’s 50th anniversary in October 2012, we are releasing eight special ESOcasts, each a chapter from the movie Europe to the Stars -- ESO’s First 50 Years of Exploring the Southern Sky.

The third special episode of this series -- ESOcast 43 overall -- presents ESO’s flagship facility: the Very Large Telescope (VLT). In this episode we discover the state-of-the-art technology behind this telescope, which has provided astronomers with an unequalled view of the Universe.

"Looking Up" is the second special episode of this series and ESOcast 42 overall. In it we look at how, over the past fifty years, ESO has helped to unravel some of the mysteries of the Universe in which we live. Astronomers were in need of more powerful tools to observe the sky and ESO provided them. A new generation of revolutionary ground-based telescopes has offered astronomers a front-row seat to study the wonders of the Universe.

Leading up to ESO's 50th anniversary in October 2012, we are releasing eight special ESOcasts, each a chapter from the movie Europe to the Stars -- ESO's First 50 Years of Exploring the Southern Sky.

Zooming in on the Hercules galaxy cluster

Panning across on the Hercules galaxy cluster

Distant star-forming galaxies in the early Universe (pan)

Distant star-forming galaxies in the early Universe (zoom)

In the past two decades, astronomers have made a truly revolutionary discovery: that the cosmos is not only expanding, but is doing so at an ever-faster rate. The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

El Gordo: a massive distant merging galaxy cluster

El Gordo: a massive distant merging galaxy cluster

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered a gas cloud with several times the mass of the Earth accelerating towards the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. This is the first time ever that the approach of such a doomed cloud to a supermassive black hole has been observed. This ESOcast explains the new results and includes spectacular simulations of how the cloud will break up over the next few years.

This ESOcast describes how astronomers have accurately measured the diameter of the faraway dwarf planet Eris for the first time by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star. This event was seen at the end of 2010 by telescopes in Chile, including the TRAPPIST telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. The observations show that Eris is an almost perfect twin of Pluto in size. Eris seems to have a very reflective surface, suggesting that it is covered in ice, probably a frozen atmosphere.