Very Large Telescope

An image of the newborn planet and its host star. The dark circle at the centre is a mask that blocks the light of the central star so astronomers can see the fainter disc and planet. The planet is the bright spot to the right of the black circle. Image Credit: ESO/A. Müller et al.

Newborn planet captured orbiting star

Planetary nebula NGC 7009, or the Saturn Nebula, glows pink and blue. These observations with the Very Large Telescope have been used to create the first detailed optical maps of gas and dust distributed throughout a planetary nebula. Image Credit: ESO/J. Walsh

VLT images the Saturn Nebula

This stunning panorama shows the Milky Way galaxy arching above the platform of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal, Chile. At 2635 metres above sea level, Paranal Observatory is one of the very best astronomical observing sites in the world and is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy. The extent of our galaxy's cloudy and dusty structure can be seen in remarkable detail as a dim glowing band across the observation deck. From Earth, we see the Milky Way as a band across the sky because from our vantage point in one of its spiral arms we are seeing its disc-shaped structure edge-on as we peer towards its centre. Our galaxy is surrounded by several smaller satellite galaxies. Prominent here, to the left, are the Small Magellanic Cloud and Large Magellanic Cloud — dwarf galaxies which are members of our Local Group of galaxies. The VLT consists of four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes (UTs) and four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) which can be used together to form the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Flickr user John Colosimo submitted this photograph to the Your ESO Pictures Flickr group. The Flickr group is regularly reviewed and the best photos are selected to be featured in our popular Picture of the Week series, or in our gallery. Link: This photograph on John Colosimo’s Flickr photostream

10 amazing VLT images

The Very Large Telescope was able to measure information about the planet's chemical composition, temperature and pressure structure. Image Credit: ESO/M Kornmesser

Boiling exoplanet has titanium atmosphere

brown dwarf main

Milky Way home to 100 billion ‘failed stars’

Image credit: ESO/UltraVISTA team Acknowledgement: TERAPIX/CNRS/INSU/CASU

ESO unveils widest ever deep view of the sky