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02 December 2010

Our Universe explored

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and arguably the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. Its primary mission is to provide the most advanced research facilities to astronomers and astrophysicists, allowing them to conduct front-line science in the best conditions. In these pages, we showcase some of ESO’s spectacular space images, captured by a variety of telescopes.

MORE WALLPAPERS IN THIS COLLECTION:

<b>The most distant galaxy ever measured</b><br>
A European team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has measured the distance to the most remote galaxy so far. By carefully analysing the very faint glow of the galaxy, they have found that they are seeing it when the Universe was only about 600 million years old (a redshift of 8,6). These are the first confirmed observations of a galaxy whose light is clearing the opaque hydrogen fog that filled the cosmos at this early time.
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Studying these first galaxies is extremely difficult. By the time their initially brilliant light gets to Earth, they appear very faint and small. Furthermore, this dim light falls mostly in the infrared part of the spectrum because its wavelength has been stretched by the expansion of the Universe – an effect known as redshift. To make matters worse, at this early time, less than a billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was not fully transparent and much of it was filled with a hydrogen fog that absorbed the fierce ultraviolet light from young galaxies.
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Credit: M Alvarez, R Kaehler, and T Abel

<b>Growing galaxies gently</b><br>
New observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope have, for the first time, provided direct evidence that young galaxies can grow by sucking in the cool gas around them and using it as fuel for the formation of many new stars. In the first few billion years after the Big Bang, the mass of a typical galaxy increased dramatically, and understanding why this happened is one of the hottest problems in modern astrophysics.
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The first galaxies formed well before the Universe was one billion years old and were much smaller than the giant systems – including the Milky Way – that we see today. Somehow, the average galaxy size has increased as the Universe has evolved. Galaxies often collide and then merge to form larger systems, and this process is certainly an important growth mechanism. However, an additional, gentler way has been proposed.
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Says astronomy team leader Giovanni Cresci: “The new results from the VLT are the first direct evidence that the accretion of pristine gas really happened, and was enough to fuel vigorous star formation and the growth of massive galaxies in the young Universe.” The discovery will have a major impact on our understanding of the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day. Theories of galaxy formation and evolution may have to be re-written.
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Credit: ESO/L Calçada

<b>Star-forming region around the star R Coronae Australis</b><br>
This magnificent view of the region around the star R Coronae Australis was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. R Coronae Australis lies at the heart of a nearby star-forming region and is surrounded by a delicate bluish reflection nebula embedded in a huge dust cloud. The image reveals surprising new details in this dramatic area of sky.
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This image shows a section of sky that spans roughly the width of the full Moon. This is equivalent to about four light-years at the distance of the nebula, which is located some 420 light-years away in the small constellation of Corona Australis (the Southern Crown). The intense radiation given off by these hot young stars interacts with the gas surrounding them and is either reflected or re-emitted at a different wavelength. These complex processes, determined by the physics of the interstellar medium and the properties of the stars, are responsible for the magnificent colours of nebulae.
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Credit: ESO

<b>Stellar nursery in the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn)</b><br>
A new infrared image from ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) reveals an extraordinary landscape of glowing tendrils of gas, dark clouds and young stars within the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn). This star-forming region, known as Monoceros R2, is embedded within a huge dark cloud. The region is almost completely obscured by interstellar dust when viewed in visible light, but is spectacular in the infrared.
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Although it appears close in the sky to the more familiar Orion Nebula, it is actually almost twice as far from Earth, at a distance of about 2 700 light-years. In visible light, a grouping of massive hot stars creates a beautiful collection of reflection nebulae where the bluish starlight is scattered from parts of the dark, foggy outer layers of the molecular cloud. However, most of the new-born massive stars remain hidden as the thick interstellar dust strongly absorbs their ultraviolet and visible light.
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This striking infrared image from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile penetrates the dark curtain of cosmic dust and reveals in astonishing detail the folds, loops and filaments sculpted from the dusty interstellar matter by intense particle winds and the radiation emitted by hot young stars.
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Credit: ESO/J Emerson/VISTA

<b>Cosmic cocoon located in the constellation of Centaurus</b><br>
Astronomers have obtained the first image of a dusty disc closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as their smaller brethren. The team looked at an object known by the cryptic name of IRAS 13481-6124. About 20 times the mass of our Sun and five times its radius, the young central star, which is still surrounded by its pre-natal cocoon, is located in the constellation of Centaurus, about 10 000 light-years away.
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Circumstellar discs are an essential ingredient in the formation process of low-mass stars such as our Sun. However, it is not known whether such discs are also present during the formation of stars more massive than about 10 solar masses, where the strong light emitted might prevent mass falling on to the star. For instance, it has been proposed that massive stars might form when smaller stars merge.
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Credit: ESO/L Calçada/M Kornmesser

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