Tag: ESO
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Breakthrough Watch and ESO kick off the search for more planets at Alpha Centauri
The NEAR instrument, shown here mounted on one of the telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope facility, came into use with ESO’s VISIR imager and spectrometer on May 21. (ESO / NEAR Collaboration Photo) The European Southern Observatory and the billionaire-backed Breakthrough Watch program say they have achieved first light with a…
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Scientists report a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, a mere 6 light-years away
An artist’s conception shows what the surface of the reported planet known as Barnard’s Star b might look like. (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) The astronomical team that found the nearest exoplanet at Proxima Centauri has done it again with the reported detection of a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star system to our…
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Einstein’s right again: Star obeys relativity as it whirls around Milky Way’s black hole
News Brief: A 26-year-long observational campaign provides clear evidence of the effect that general relativity has on the motion of a star known as S2 as it boomerangs around the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The redshift observations, made in infrared wavelengths using instruments on the European Southern Observatory’s…