European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1226

Close-up view of NGC 6357. Image credit: ESO/VLT.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has taken the most detailed image so far of a spectacular part of the stellar nursery called NGC 6357. The view shows many hot young stars, glowing clouds of gas and weird dust formations sculpted by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds. (read more)

Source: ESA Space Science

Blowing bubbles in the Carina Nebula.
Image credits: ESA/PACS/SPIRE/Thomas Preibisch,
Universitäts-Sternwarte München and the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Giant bubbles, towering pillars and cascading clouds of dust and gas fill the star-forming nursery of the Carina Nebula seen here in a stunning new view from Herschel Spacee Telescope (read more).

Source: ESA News

Baby stars in Orion Nebula.
Credits: ESA/PACS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/IRAM

Astronomers using ESA’s Herschel and NASA’s Spitzer space telescopes have detected surprisingly rapid changes in the brightness of embryonic stars within the well-known Orion Nebula.(read more)

Source: ESA

This all-sky distribution of carbon monoxide (CO) as seen by Planck (blue).
Image credits: ESA/Planck Collaboration; T. Dame et al., 2001.

ESA’s Planck mission has revealed that our Galaxy contains previously undiscovered islands of cold gas and a mysterious haze of microwaves. These results give scientists new treasure to mine and take them closer to revealing the blueprint of cosmic structure. (read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1208

The Carina Nebula by VLT. Image credits:ESO/T. Preibisch.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope has delivered the most detailed infrared image of the Carina Nebula stellar nursery taken so far. Many previously hidden features, scattered across a spectacular celestial landscape of gas, dust and young stars, have emerged. This is one of the most dramatic images ever created by the VLT. (learn more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1207

 
The star formation region NGC 3324. Image credits: ESO.

This new view shows a stellar nursery called NGC 3324. It was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The intense ultraviolet radiation from several of NGC 3324's hot young stars causes the gas cloud to glow with rich colours and has carved out a cavity in the surrounding gas and dust. (read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1205

VISTA has captured this unusual view of the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293).
Image credits: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson.
Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

ESO’s VISTA telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, has captured a striking new image of the Helix Nebula. This picture, taken in infrared light, reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are invisible in images taken in visible light, as well as bringing to light a rich background of stars and galaxies. (read more)

Source: ESA

Stunning new Herschel and XMM-Newton image.
Image credits: X-ray: ESA/XMM-Newton/EPIC/XMM-Newton-SOC/Boulanger
Far-infrared: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/Hill, Motte, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium;

The Eagle Nebula as never seen before. In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope's 'Pillars of Creation' image of the Eagle Nebula became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. Now, two of ESA's orbiting observatories have shed new light on this enigmatic star-forming region. (read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble Photo Release heic1118

Hubble view of star-forming region S106. Image credits:NASA & ESA.

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured this image of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas illuminated by a bright young star. The image shows how violent the end stages of the star-formation process can be, with the young object shaking up its stellar nursery.(read more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1151

Simulation of the cloud being disrupted by a black hole.
Image credits: ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann.

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered a gas cloud with several times the mass of the Earth accelerating fast 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. The results will be published in the 5 January 2012 issue of the journal Nature.(read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1145

The cold stellar formation clouds in the Carina Nebula, seen by APEX.
Image credits: ESO/APEX/T. Preibisch et al. (Submillimetre);
N. Smith, University of Minnesota/NOAO/AURA/NSF (Optical)

Observations made with the APEX telescope in submillimetre-wavelength light reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy, is an ideal arena in which to study the interactions between these young stars and their parent molecular clouds. (read more)

Source: Chandra

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk; IR: NASA/JPL/CfA/S.Wolk

A nebula with active star formation about 9,200 light years from Earth. (read the hole story)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1136

The rare yellow hypergiant star called IRAS 17163-3907.
Image credits: ESO/E. Lagadec.

Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to image a colossal star that belongs to one of the rarest classes of stars in the Universe, the yellow hypergiants. The new picture is the best ever taken of a star in this class and shows for the first time a huge dusty double shell surrounding the central hypergiant. The star and its shells resemble an egg white around a yolky centre, leading the astronomers to nickname the object the Fried Egg Nebula. (learn more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1135

Running Chicken Nebula, a cloud of gas and newborn stars.
Image credit: ESO

A new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope reveals the Lambda Centauri Nebula, a cloud of glowing hydrogen and newborn stars in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). The nebula, also known as IC 2944, is sometimes nicknamed the Running Chicken Nebula, from a bird-like shape some people see in its brightest region.(read more)

Source: ESA/Herschel and NASA/Herschel

Herschel found oxygen molecules in the Orion nebula.
Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech.

ESA’s Herschel space observatory has found molecules of oxygen in a nearby star-forming cloud. This is the first undisputed detection of oxygen molecules in space. It concludes a long search but also leaves questions unanswered.

The oxygen molecules have been found in the nearby Orion star-forming complex. While atomic oxygen has been long known in warm regions of space, previous missions looking for the molecular variety – two atoms of oxygen bonded together – came up largely empty-handed.(read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1125

Nebula LHA 120-N 44 (aka N44) surrounding the star cluster NGC 1929.
Image credits: ESO/Manu Mejias.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured this striking view of the nebula around the star cluster NGC 1929 within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. A colossal example of what astronomers call a superbubble dominates this stellar nursery. It is being carved by the winds from bright young stars and the shockwaves from supernova explosions.(read more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1123

Rho Ophiuchi star formation region.
Image credits: ESO/S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard)

Molecules of hydrogen peroxide have been found for the first time in interstellar space. The discovery gives clues about the chemical link between two molecules critical for life: water and oxygen. On Earth, hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in the chemistry of water and ozone in our planet’s atmosphere, and is familiar for its use as a disinfectant or to bleach hair blonde. Now it has been detected in space by astronomers using the ESO-operated APEX telescope in Chile. (read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1121

The dramatic nebula around the bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse.
Image credit: ESO/P. Kervella

Using the VISIR instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have imaged a complex and bright nebula around the supergiant star Betelgeuse in greater detail than ever before. This structure, which resembles flames emanating from the star, is formed as the behemoth sheds its material into space.(read more)

Source: ESO Organisation Release eso1119

VST image of the star-forming region Messier 17.
Image credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM.
Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute.

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory, has made its first release of impressive images of the southern sky. The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope, with the huge 268-megapixel camera OmegaCAM at its heart, which is designed to map the sky both quickly and with very fine image quality. It is a visible-light telescope that perfectly complements ESO’s VISTA infrared survey telescope. New images of the Omega Nebula and the globular cluster Omega Centauri demonstrate the VST’s power. (read more)

Source: NASA/Chandra

Image credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.

A new Chandra image shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. Chandra's sharp X-ray vision has detected over 14,000 stars in this region, revealed a diffuse X-ray glow, and provided strong evidence that massive stars have already self-destructed in this nearby supernova factory.(read more)