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This video journey takes the viewer on a three million light-year trip to the Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33. The final view, from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), is amongst the most detailed wide-field views of this object ever taken and shows the many glowing red gas clouds in the spiral arms with particular clarity.
Distance:3 million light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/N. Risinger/David Malin
The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile has captured this beautifully detailed image of the galaxy Messier 33, often called the Triangulum Galaxy. This nearby spiral, the second closest large galaxy to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is packed with bright star clusters, and clouds of gas and dust. This picture is amongst the most detailed wide-field views of this object ever taken and shows the many glowing red gas clouds in the spiral arms with particular clarity.
A glittering multitude of stars in the globular cluster Terzan 4 fill this image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. Globular clusters are collections of stars bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction, and can contain millions of individual stars. As this image shows, the heart of a globular cluster, such as Terzan 4, is a densely packed, crowded field of stars.
The launch of Hubble in 1990 revolutionized the study of globular clusters. The individual stars in these dense crowds are almost impossible to distinguish from one another with ground-based telescopes, but can be picked apart using space telescopes. Astronomers have taken advantage of Hubble’s crystal-clear vision to study the stars making up globular clusters, as well as how these systems change over time.
This particular observation comes from astronomers using Hubble to explore Terzan 4 and other globular clusters to understand the shape, density, age, and structure of globular clusters close to the center of the Milky Way. Unlike globular clusters elsewhere in the sky, these globular clusters have evaded detailed observation because of the clouds of gas and dust swirling around the galactic core. These clouds blot out starlight in a process that astronomers refer to as ‘extinction’, and complicate astronomical observations.
Astronomers took advantage of the sensitivity of two of Hubble’s instruments—the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3—to overcome the impact of extinction on Terzan 4. By combining Hubble imagery with sophisticated data processing, astronomers were able to determine the ages of galactic globular clusters to within a billion years—a relatively accurate measurement in astronomical terms.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen
The dark clouds in this image, taken from the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, almost resemble something supernatural, like the wispy trails of ghosts in the sky. However, there is no need to call the ghostbusters! These clouds, known as Barnard 92 (right) and Barnard 93 (left) are dark nebulae. They look pitch black because the dense gas and dust they contain block out the background light, creating these hazy ghostlike features.
These nebulae are stellar nurseries, where new stars are born out of the collapsing dense gas and dust. This whole region of space imaged here is actually part of a much larger stellar complex, called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (or Messier 24, catalogued by Charles Messier in 1764). This area is so rich in stars that it is clearly visible to the naked eye during dark nights in the constellation of Sagittarius.
This image was taken with an enormous 268 million pixel camera called OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope. OmegaCAM is designed for capturing wide fields like this image, where you could impressively fit four full Moons. This image is part of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which has mapped diffuse nebulae as well as both young and evolved stars in our galaxy.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/VPHAS+ team
Acknowledgement: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
Bright Star Cluster NGC 2367: Wide-field View | ESO
This wide-field view of the sky around the star cluster NGC 2367 was created from photographic material forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The cluster itself is the tight knot of blue stars at the center of the picture.
Distance: over 7,000 light years
Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin
This pan video gives a close-up view of an array of colorful stars and gas that was captured by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera, on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It shows a young open cluster of stars known as NGC 2367, an infant stellar grouping that lies at the center of an immense and ancient structure on the margins of the Milky Way.
Distance: over 7,000 light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/G. Beccari
This video starts with a view of the southern Milky Way and takes us on a journey towards the open star cluster NGC 2367, not far from the bright star Sirius in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog). The MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s La Silla Observatory in Chile captured this richly colorful view. The brighter cluster stars are very young by stellar standards and still shine with a hot bluish color.
This rich view of an array of colorful stars and gas was captured by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera, on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It shows a young open cluster of stars known as NGC 2367, an infant stellar grouping that lies at the center of an immense and ancient structure on the margins of the Milky Way.
Distance: over 7,000 light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/G. Beccari
The small smattering of bright stars at the center of this wide-field view is Messier 18, an open star cluster containing stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust. This picture, which also shows part of the bright Omega Nebula (Messier 17) at the top, was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2
This video sequence takes a close look at a huge 615 megapixel image captured by the OmegaCAM camera attached to the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. It shows the sky around the star cluster Messier 18. This small smattering of bright blue stars is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust.
This sequence takes the viewer from a wide view of the Milky Way deep into the central regions, where many bright star forming regions and star clusters can be seen. The final view is a close-up of the sky around the bright star cluster Messier 18 taken with the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory.
Credit: European Southern Observatory/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinge
Star Cluster Messier 18 and its surroundings | ESO
The small smattering of bright blue stars upper left of center in this huge 615 megapixel ESO image is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars. Known as Messier 18 this open star cluster contains stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust. This image was captured by the OmegaCAM camera attached to the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300: Warm Gas Clouds & Stars | ESO
This image of the nearby galaxy NGC 1300 was taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The bright reddish glows map warm clouds of hydrogen (Hα), marking the presence of newly born stars, while the bluish regions (a combination of green, red and infrared filters) reveal the distribution of slightly older stars.
NGC 1300 is a spiral galaxy, with a bar of stars and gas at its center, located approximately 61 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus.
The images were taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, which is making high-resolution observations of nearby galaxies with telescopes operating across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/PHANGS
Galaxy NGC 1300: Views in Multiple Wavelengths | ESO
This video shows images of NGC 1300, a spiral galaxy with a bar of stars and gas at its center located approximately 61 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus, taken at many different wavelengths of light. The observations were conducted with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner.
The first two images are from the MUSE data. The first one, revealing the distribution of young stars, fades to a combined image that includes clouds of ionized hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur gas, marking the presence of newly born stars.
The next image shows the ALMA data only. ALMA was used to map cold clouds of molecular gas, which provide the raw material from which stars form. Thousands of stars can form in just one of these molecular clouds, yet these stellar nurseries are invisible to the human eye—they can only be observed via the radio waves emitted by carbon monoxide (CO).
The following image is a combination of all the MUSE and ALMA data, forming a colorful cosmic firework, which is helping astronomers to unlock the secrets of star formation.
The images were taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, which is making high-resolution observations of nearby galaxies with telescopes operating across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/PHANGS
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300 in Multiple Light Wavelengths | ESO
This image of the nearby galaxy NGC 1300 was obtained by combining observations taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy, with a bar of stars and gas at its center, located approximately 61 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars.
This image is a combination of observations conducted at different wavelengths of light to map stellar populations and gas. ALMA’s observations are represented in brownish-orange tones and highlight the clouds of cold molecular gas that provide the raw material from which stars form. The MUSE data show up mainly in gold and blue. The bright golden glows map warm clouds of mainly ionized hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur gas, marking the presence of newly born stars, while the bluish regions reveal the distribution of slightly older stars.
The image was taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, which is making high resolution observations of nearby galaxies with telescopes operating across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/PHANGS
On Sunday, September 4, 2022, at 10:09 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 51 Starlink satellites and Spaceflight’s Sherpa-LTC, an orbital transfer vehicle, to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the seventh flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Arabsat-6A, STP-2, COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2, KPLO, and now three Starlink missions.
