The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. A tremendously bright nearby star, Herschel 36, lights the area. Vast walls of dust hide and redden other hot young stars. As energy from these stars pours into the cool dust and gas, large temperature differences in adjoining regions can be created generating shearing winds which may cause the funnels. This picture, spanning about 15 light years, combines images taken in four colors by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, lies about 5000 light years distant toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius).
Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (top right) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy, at least 5 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. The appearance of this giant galaxy's distorted and stretched out spiral arms suggests the magnificent wings of a giant bird. Of course its popular moniker is the Condor galaxy. It lies about 200 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock. Lined with star-forming regions, the distorted spiral arms are due to NGC 6872's gravitational interaction with the nearby smaller galaxy IC 4970, seen just above the giant galaxy's core. The Pavo galaxy group's dominant giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 6876 is below and left of the soaring Condor galaxy.
Messier 15 is an immense swarm of over 100,000 stars. A 13 billion year old relic of the early formative years of our galaxy it's one of about 170 globular star clusters that still roam the halo of the Milky Way. Centered in this sharp reprocessed Hubble image, M15 lies some 35,000 light-years away toward the constellation Pegasus. Its diameter is about 200 light-years, but more than half its stars are packed into the central 10 light-years or so, making one of the densest concentrations of stars known. Hubble-based measurements of the increasing velocities of M15's central stars are evidence that a massive black hole resides at the center of the dense cluster. M15 is also known to harbor a planetary nebula. Called Pease 1 (aka PN Ps 1), it can be seen in this image as a small blue blob below and just right of center.
This 1st image shows the sky around the location of the Sh2-284 nebula, which is visible in orange at the very center of the frame. This picture was created from images in the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The 2nd picture of the Sh2-284 nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Sh2-284 is a star formation region, and at its center there is a cluster of young stars, dubbed Dolidze 25. The radiation from this cluster is powerful enough to ionize the hydrogen gas in the nebula’s cloud. It is this ionization that produces its bright orange and red colors.
In Chile’s Atacama desert, ESO’s very own Colosseum — the Extremely Large Telescope, or ELT –– is being assembled. As this image taken in early June 2023 shows, progress is moving quickly on the construction site, as the steel frame of the telescope’s dome is pieced together.
Parts of the steel backbone running around the edge of the building are fitted together at the ELT base camp before being transported to the platform atop Cerro Armazones using specialized transporters. Not an easy feat given that these pre-assembled steel blocks weigh some 77 tons! Once they’re on location, the giant steel Lego-like blocks are hoisted up using the gigantic cranes you see here, and mounted on a rail inserted into trolleys. The entire dome, which will weigh 6,724 tons, will rotate on these trolleys when the ELT enters operation. Inside will be the 39 meter mirror.
If you peer into the distance, to the right of the yellow crane coming up from behind the structure, you might just be able to make out another of ESO’s telescopes: the Very Large Telescope, watching from afar how its new sibling takes shape.