Let the new year swirl in… What looks like a vortex of fire is in reality a disc around the young AB Aurigae star. Close to the centre, the ‘twist’ (in very bright yellow) marks the spot where scientists believe a planet is forming. 🔭

Join us on a trip to the dwarf star PDS 70, located 400 light-years away and with at least two planets orbiting it. The final shot shows an ALMA image of the PDS 70 system, where a moon-forming disc is visible around planet PDS 70c. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2111/ 🔭

Let’s round off the year with a spectacular burst of cosmic fireworks from the Universe itself: the mix of stars in the stellar cluster known as Terzan 5. Wishing you all a wonderful 2026! 🎇 Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1630a/  🔭 #flashback  📷 ESO/F. Ferraro

Take a glimpse into APEX, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert 📡👀 Once a joint project of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), the Onsala Space Observatory and ESO, APEX now becomes a project solely of the MPIfR. www.eso.org/public/video... 🔭

#TourESO 📹🔴 5 more minutes and we'll virtually explore our La Silla Observatory! Will you join us? 🙂 Streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ESOobservatory/   📷 B. Wilmart/ESO

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

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/ 🔭

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)

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

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 🔭 🧪

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

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/ 🔭

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

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)

#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

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

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/ 🔭

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)

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/ 🔭

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

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 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 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 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. 🧪🔭

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/... 🔭🧪

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/ 🔭

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...

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 🔭 🧪

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

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

Before the night emerges, our Paranal Observatory glows in the colourful light of the Chilean sunset 🤩 The atmospheric phenomenon known as Venus belt is also visible.  Curious what it is? Find out: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2548a/ 🔭 🧪 📷 J. Looten/ESO

#TourESO 📹🔴 Only 5 minutes left until we embark on a virtual tour of ESO's La Silla Observatory! Are you joining us? 🙂  Streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ESOobservatory/   📷 Gerhard Hüdepohl/ESO 🔭

About 1350 light-years from Earth lies the Orion Nebula 🤩 This stellar nursery is home to the Trapezium — a group of four young stars pumping out fierce ultraviolet radiation that is clearing the surrounding region and making the gas glow. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1006/ 🔭

Join us on a trip to the region between the Scorpius and Ophiuchus constellations, home to tens of rogue planets. Rogue planets do not orbit a star but roam freely. Since they are not illuminated by nearby stars, they are hard to discover.  Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2120/ 🔭

The night sky is not the only marvel of the Atacama Desert. One example? The Licancabur volcano, one of the great gatekeepers of ALMA. 5920 m high, it‘s part of a chain of mountains that separate Chile and Bolivia 🌋 https://www.eso.org/public/images/licancabur-yuri/  🔭

1/ A telescope fist bump in the sky 🤜 🤛 Our Unit Telescopes combine their light with interferometry to obtain the level of detail of a huge 130 m virtual telescope. But this requires correcting the effects of Earth’s atmosphere. This is where the lasers come in.  🔭 🧪

Senza alcun dubbio è estremamente grande. Qualche foto dalla visita al cantiere di ELT di @eso.org nel deserto di Atacama in Cile. Seguiranno aggiornamenti www.rainews.it/photogallery...

The purr-fect cosmic object for cat lovers 🐱 Located 5500 light-years away, the iconic Cat's paw nebula 🐾 is the birthplace of hundreds of massive stars. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1017/ 🔭 📷 ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

Fancy a visit to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole lurking in the heart of the #MilkyWay? The final still is the first image ever of the black hole, unveiled in 2022 by the @ehtelescope.bsky.social . Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2208-eht-mw/ 🔭

A section of Ara OB1, a stellar association, is visible in this image. Stellar associations are large groupings of loosely bound stars that have not yet completely drifted away from their initial formation site. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1510/ 🔭  📷 ESO #Flashback

Hypnotising view of Paranal! Yet the sky is not revolving around the tip of an Auxiliary Telescope. The illusion is caused by the alignment with the southern celestial pole, around which stars seem to trail due to Earth's rotation. https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2546a 🔭 🧪 📷 O. Castillo/ESO

#TourESO 📹🔴 Just 5 minutes until our next virtual tour of the Paranal Observatory begins, get ready! Streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ESOobservatory/   📷 ESO/M. Claro 🔭

Take a peek at the brilliant star WR 22 & its colourful surroundings 🌟 👀 WR 22 is shedding its atmosphere into space at a rate many millions of times faster than the Sun. It lies in the outer part of the Carina Nebula from which it formed. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1031/ 🔭

ICYMI, VLT observations have revealed the unique shape of a star’s explosion just a day after detection. It's the first time that astronomers unveil the shape of the explosion at its earliest stage, providing insights into the deaths of massive stars. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2520/ 🔭 🧪 ☄️

For the first time ever, astronomers have unveiled the shape of a supernova explosion just a day after detection, as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. Achieved by our VLT, this feat will help us understand how massive stars die: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2520/ 🔭 🧪 ☄️

Today we’re leaving the #MilkyWay behind and heading into the Large Magellanic Cloud. Our destination? A binary system that seems like a lone blue star, but actually also hosts an invisible black hole, weighing at least 9 times the mass of our Sun. More: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2210/ 🔭

Five thousand light-years away lies the magnificent Lagoon Nebula — an interstellar cloud stretching over 100 light-years across. It boasts many large, hot stars, whose ultraviolet radiation sculpts the gas and dust into unusual shapes. www.eso.org/public/image... 🔭 #Flashback

1/ Milestone achieved by the VLTI upgrade GRAVITY+: a laser has been installed at each of the previously unequipped VLT Unit Telescopes. This will dramatically enhance the VLTI observing power. Discover more with #ChasingStarlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzK1B3VU1L8 🔭 🧪

🌎 On World Science Day for Peace and Development, senior leaders across EIROforum thank citizens for their trust and support. Xavier Barcons from ESO talks about how trust in science enables discoveries about exoplanets, very distant galaxies, and black holes.

While the Magellanic Clouds shine upon the Chilean Desert, two VLTI Auxiliary Telescopes point up to the sky — all together reminding us of how small we are as humans compared to cosmic objects & the telescopes we observe them with. https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2545a/ 🔭 🧪 📷 J. Looten/ESO