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The European Southern Observatory designs, builds & operates world-class observatories on the ground for the benefit of society. More info on eso.org
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eso.org
The Eagle Nebula is a dazzling stellar nursery. In it, a cluster of massive, hot stars, NGC 6611, has just been born.

The powerful light and strong winds from these massive new arrivals are shaping light-year long pillars.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0926/ 🔭

📷 ESO
A view of a Nebula, filled with glowing pink and red clouds of gas illuminated by bright, young stars. Dark, finger-like pillars of dust stretch upward from the nebula’s center. Countless stars of varying brightness sparkle across the scene.
December 25, 2025 at 1:01 PM
eso.org
This animation takes us to a Wolf–Rayet star in NGP–190387, a galaxy so far away its light took over 12 billion years to reach us.

Wolf–Rayet stars are hot and massive, and are thought to end in dramatic supernova explosions.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2115/ 🔭
December 24, 2025 at 1:02 PM
eso.org
In the Atacama Desert, the average annual rainfall barely reaches 15 millimetres.

Yet it does, on very rare occasions, snow, as shown in this 2011 image of our VLT at Cerro Paranal ❄️ 🌨️

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1211a/ 

🔭 #flashback

📷 ESO/S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard)
A rocky, snow-dusted landscape in the desert leads up to a hilltop with several white observatory buildings silhouetted against a bright blue sky.
December 23, 2025 at 8:01 AM
eso.org
Happiest of holidays from ESO!

With all the discoveries made, milestones achieved & pictures captured, 2025 has been another successful year. We're excitedly looking ahead for the next one to come.

Until then, we wish you restful holidays and a happy new year!

🔭
📹 ESO
December 22, 2025 at 8:03 AM
eso.org
Construction of the southern array of CTAO – the world’s largest & most powerful gamma-ray observatory – has kicked off at Paranal.

Read about the groundbreaking ceremony: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2521

Discover CTAO with #ChasingStarlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKRazLrvUNQ

🔭 🧪
A view of part of Earth from space. The visible half is on the left, showing the Americas. In space, a light blue beam is pointing towards South America. A few stars and some yellow lines are scattered across the dark space background.
December 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM
eso.org
An example of a dark nebula: the Pipe Nebula.

Originally, astronomers believed these were areas with no stars. But dark nebulae actually consist of clouds of interstellar dust so thick it can block out the light from the stars beyond.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1233/ 🔭

📷 ESO
A densely packed star field dotted with countless tiny stars of varying brightness and colour. At the centre lies a dark, irregular cloud of interstellar dust. Several prominent blue-white stars glow near the edges of the dust cloud.
December 18, 2025 at 1:04 PM
eso.org
Enjoy this trip to NGC 1850, a cluster of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This cluster harbours the first small black hole outside of our galaxy to be discovered by looking at its gravitational influence on the path of the star orbiting it

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2116/ 🔭
December 17, 2025 at 1:07 PM
eso.org
Our new SOXS instrument has made its first observations!

Installed at La Silla, it will observe fleeting cosmic events such as supernovae explosions or fast-moving asteroids. 

https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25011/

🔭 🧪
#instrumentation
📷 P. Schipani/INAF
A view of the the Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) instrument on ESO’s New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, inside a clean, white-walled room. The instrument consists of a cylindrical central unit with numerous cables, tubes, and electronic components attached, mounted on a green metal frame.
December 16, 2025 at 3:03 PM
eso.org
Located at our La Silla Observatory, the now de-commissioned SEST Telescope appears to watch the Large Magellanic Cloud up in the sky.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/uhd_img6931_bt_cc/ 

🔭 #flashback

📷 ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)
A large radio telescope dish is silhouetted against a star-filled night sky, with the Large Magellanic Cloud visible to the right
December 16, 2025 at 8:02 AM
eso.org
#TourESO 📹🔴 The clock is ticking: our next virtual tour of the Paranal Observatory kicks off in just 5 minutes! 

Streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ESOobservatory/  

📷 ESO/H.H.Heyer
Silhouettes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope buildings stand against a blue and orange twilight sky, with a thin crescent Moon visible above the horizon.
December 13, 2025 at 1:55 PM
eso.org
Cooling house-sized instruments to –270°C in a desert?

That’s a challenge we're tackling to allow the ELT to catch the faintest cosmic signals. The solution are giant custom cryogenic facilities, built on an unprecedented scale.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms19...

🔭 🧪
#instrumentation
Cooling the largest astronomical instruments ever
YouTube video by European Southern Observatory (ESO)
www.youtube.com
December 12, 2025 at 11:23 AM
eso.org
Found 8000 light-years away, the cluster NGC 3293 is less than 10 million years old.

Star clusters like NGC 3293 contain stars that all formed at the same time and out of the same cloud of gas and dust. Hence, they are ideal for testing stellar evolution.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1422/ 🔭
A compact cluster of brilliant blue-white stars is visible at the centre, surrounded by a reddish glow from interstellar gas and dust. Faint red nebula filaments stretch across the image, contrasting with the dark background of space.
December 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM
eso.org
We are continuing to expand our efforts to protect the night skies.

ESO signed an agreement with the IAU's Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky to become a contributing partner.
https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25010/

🔭 🧪
📷 A. Daniels (SKAO)
ESO Director General Xavier Barcons (left) and Piero Benvenuti (right), IAU CPS Director, shake hands after signing an agreement. Posters of ESO and the International Astronomy Union’s Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky are visible behind them.
December 10, 2025 at 1:11 PM
eso.org
Our destination today is NGC 7727, a galaxy 89 million light-years away.

In it, two supermassive black holes are on a collision course. One has a mass almost 154 million times that of the Sun, while its companion is 6.3 million solar masses.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2117/ 🔭
December 10, 2025 at 1:03 PM
eso.org
Cosmic treasures galore in this view from the Atacama Desert!

The white blob in the upper left is Jupiter, while the red ones are Barnard's loop in the upper part and Gum Nebula in the middle.

Discover the others: https://www.eso.org/public/images/150123-24_atacama_fullfr_cc/ 

🔭 #flashback
A fisheye night-sky photograph taken in a desert landscape, showing the sky with the Milky Way stretching overhead. Reddish objects and stars fill the centre of the frame, with faint green airglow surrounding them. On the ground below, a person stands near a parked car, looking up at the sky.
December 9, 2025 at 8:02 AM
eso.org
Glowing below the full Moon, the ELT dome might look small in this image.

Yet the full 30-minute walk via the set of stairs from the entrance of the dome to its top indicates its gigantic size: 80 m high & 93 m wide!

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2549a/

🔭 🧪
📷 L. Sbordone/ESO
The sky's gradient fades from blue at the top to white, then orange and pink at the bottom. A mountain range is visible at the bottom of the image, with all but one of the mountains already in darkness. The last illuminated one is on the right, with a metallic structure on top. In the middle of the mountain range, a triangular shadow can be seen. A silver full moon high in the sky on the left underlines the timelessness of the image.
December 8, 2025 at 8:02 AM
eso.org
The interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS ☄️ cruising through our Solar System is no alien spaceship and won't hit Earth.

Still, the buzz around it is far from unfounded 🤩

Discover why with #ChasingStarlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiqLxfSiVI

🔭 🧪
A bright white object glowing with green tones against a dark, starry space backdrop. The text "3I/ATLAS Facts, not fiction" appears on the image.
December 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
eso.org
A stunning image of a monstrous stellar factory: the Tarantula Nebula, measuring nearly 1,000 light-years across.

It is thought to contain more than half a million times the mass of the Sun in gas, and it hosts some of the most massive stars known.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0650/ 🔭
A richly detailed astronomical image of a nebula, with glowing clouds of gas and dust. The entire view is full of with stars scattered across a dark background.
December 4, 2025 at 1:02 PM
eso.org
A special treat for our Italian followers! Check out this great video by Andrea Bettini, where he takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of our Extremely Large Telescope in Chile. 🧪🔭
December 4, 2025 at 8:27 AM
eso.org
Making astronomy accessible for everyone requires developing new and engaging ways to describe astronomical data.

In our latest blog post we talked to sonification experts to learn how turning astronomical data into sound can benefit everyone.

Read more: www.eso.org/public/blog/...

🔭🧪
A photograph of a pair of headphones bookending four books.
December 3, 2025 at 2:21 PM
eso.org
Let's dive into the dusty central region of the Milky Way!

There, a swarm of stars orbits an invisible, supermassive #BlackHole. As we get closer to it, we see these stars, as observed by the VLT (in 2019) and VLTI (mid-2021).

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2119/ 🔭
December 3, 2025 at 1:05 PM
eso.org
ALMA has captured extremely detailed radio images of the turbulent atmosphere of a dying star 📡 🌟

It observed tens of molecular spectral lines, each one revealing a different atmospheric layer.

Read more: www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-rel...
December 2, 2025 at 2:44 PM
eso.org
Eminent researchers have written an open letter to the Chilean Government appealing for the protection of the #DarkSkies above our Paranal Observatory, threatened by the industrial complex INNA — planned to be located just a few kilometres away.
https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25009

🔭 🧪
The VLT's auxiliary telescopes against the vast background of the night sky. The Milky Way, in the centre of this image, is pointing upwards and is surrounded by countless stars. On top of the image, the following text can be read: „Skies at risk: Eminent astronomers worldwide appeal for the protection of the Paranal skies“
December 2, 2025 at 12:03 PM
eso.org
New stars spring to life in the IC4701 nebula.

The energetic light from newly-born stars ionizes the hydrogen gas in the nebula, causing it to emit the intense reddish hue seen in this picture.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2310a/   

🔭 #flashback
A dense star-forming region filled with thousands of stars. The scene is dominated by pink, red, and purple glowing gas clouds. Bright blue and white stars are scattered throughout, and dark dust lanes cut across the nebula.
December 2, 2025 at 8:02 AM
eso.org
Today we signed an agreement with an international consortium for the design and construction of the ELT instrument MOSAIC.

MOSAIC will help trace the growth of galaxies and matter distribution from the Big Bang to the present day.

https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25008/

🔭 🧪

📷 ESO
Alain Schuhl (Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Science, CNRS) and Xavier Barcons (Director General, ESO) sign the contract for the MOSAIC an instrument. The French and ESO flags are visible behind them. Vegetation can be seen through the glass wall in the background.
December 1, 2025 at 3:03 PM