ESOcast HD
ESOcast is a video podcast series dedicated to bringing you the latest news and research from ESO, the European Southern Observatory. Here we explore the Universe's ultimate frontier with our host Doctor J, a.k.a. Dr. Joe Liske.
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20 Episodes of this Podcast:
ESOcast 20: Richest planetary system discovered
Published: 2010-08-24 04:00:00Astronomers using ESO instruments have discovered a remarkable extrasolar planetary system that has some striking similarities to our own Solar System. At least five planets are orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180, and the regular pattern of their orbits is similar to that observed for our neighbouring planets. One of the new extrasolar worlds could be only 1.4 times the mass of the Earth, making it the least massive exoplanet ever found.
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ESOcast 19: Photographers of the Night
Published: 2010-07-15 05:00:00The Sun sets behind Cerro Paranal in the Chilean Atacama desert. While astronomers get ready to observe with ESO's Very Large Telescope, Nature prepares for her own grand display. As night falls over the desert, the southern sky reveals its nocturnal beauty, leaving the spectator in silent amazement. Some people, however, don’t just stare at the spectacle. With great skill, they record these unique moments for everyone to see - they are the photographers of the night.
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ESOcast 18: Exoplanet Caught on the Move
Published: 2010-06-10 14:00:00For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves to the other side of its host star. The planet has the smallest orbit so far of all directly imaged exoplanets, lying as close to its host star as Saturn is to the Sun. Scientists believe that it may have formed in a similar way to the giant planets in the Solar System. This discovery proves that gas giant planets can form within discs in only a few million years, a short time in cosmic terms.
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ESOcast 17: Constructing ALMA — The World's Largest Observatory
Published: 2010-05-28 07:00:00High on the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes, the first antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array, or ALMA for short, move in unison.
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ESOcast 16: E-ELT Site Chosen
Published: 2010-04-26 10:00:00On 26 April 2010, the ESO Council selected Cerro Armazones as the site for the planned 42-metre European Extremely Large Telescope. Cerro Armazones is an isolated mountain at 3060 metres altitude in the central part of Chile's Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres away from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
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ESOcast 15: Recoating a Giant VLT Mirror
Published: 2010-03-12 04:00:00Every night, all year round, the ESO Very Large Telescope, or VLT, opens its four giant eyes to scrutinise the beautiful southern skies. Each eye is a huge mirror, 8.2 metres in diameter, that gathers the light of the night sky, and reflects it into optical systems that form ultra-sharp images of the Universe. But keeping the VLT´s eyes clear requires each mirror to be cleaned and recoated occasionally, a delicate and complex procedure.
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ESOcast 14: Orion in a New Light
Published: 2010-02-10 06:00:00The Orion Nebula reveals many of its hidden secrets in a dramatic image taken by ESO’s new VISTA survey telescope. VISTA — the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy — is the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory. It is the largest survey telescope in the world and is dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths. The telescope’s huge field of view can show the full splendour of the Orion Nebula and VISTA’s infrared vision also allows it to peer deeply into dusty regions that are normally hidden and expose the curious behaviour of the very active young stars buried there.
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ESOcast 13: A sharper view of the Universe with the VLT Interferometer
Published: 2010-01-12 05:30:00In principle, the larger a telescope’s mirror, the finer the details it can see.
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ESOCast 12: VISTA: A Pioneering New Survey Telescope Starts Work
Published: 2009-12-11 05:30:00VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) is a new telescope that has just started work at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile and has made its first release of pictures. VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths and is the world’s largest survey telescope. Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. Spectacular pictures of the Flame Nebula, the Centre of the Milky Way and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster show that it is working very well.
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ESOcast 11: 32 New Exoplanets Found
Published: 2009-10-18 18:00:00On 19 October 2009, at an international exoplanet conference, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope, reports on the incredible discovery of more than 30 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS’s position as the world’s foremost exoplanet hunter.
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