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yuribeletsky Apocalyptic view from Andean altiplano in Northern Chile :) Soon after the sunset the sky just exploded in colors leaving us completely speechless. Heavy clouds were hanging over the plateau and they certainly added a nice touch to the scene. On the foreground you can see a chain of radio telescopes of ALMA project, located at the altitude of ~17000 feet (~5000m). I hope you'll enjoy the view !
Timelapse shots from the Atacama Desert, home of the European Southern Observatory’s main telescopes, including the ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter Array - the gigantic set of radio telescopes you see operating in some of these shots.
Venus Jupiter Conjunction - right now
Several times each decade Venus and Jupiter appear quite close in the sky, as seen here in this 2009 photo from the European Southern Observatory. This arrangement results from all the planets being in the same plane - as the two objects orbit the sun sometimes they wind up close to on a line with the Earth. This year's conjunction is happening right now, literally - if you have dark sky head out just after sunset and look to the west. This year's conjunction is also special, as these two night lights are as close together in the sky as they will be for the next 40 years.
-JBB
Image credit: ESO http://www.eso.org/public/images/yb_vlt_moon_cnn_cc/
Reference/more information: http://bit.ly/2bzi56W
This week a number of planetary scientists and astronomers got to tour the facilities of the European Southern Observatory. Those telescopes are built high in the Andean desert - the desert is useful because few clouds and little moisture means good observing conditions. But take a look at the barren landscape that surrounds the observatory in the Atacama Desert. Seriously, find a plant.
Here’s video of a remarkable discovery from scientists in Brazil and at the European Southern Observatory - the asteroid Chariklo in the outer solar system has rings around it!
Video here shows the asteroid passing between the Earth and a star, blocking out its light, but before and after the asteroid blocked out the star, you can see tiny dips in the light as the asteroids rings move across too.
Thunder at the observatory It doesn’t rain very often in the Atacama Desert. That’s one of the reasons that the European Southern Observatory has placed some of its most powerful telescopes on mountains in that area; cloud cover makes it hard to use a telescope. Here’s a time when the skies above the ESO telescopes opened up, photographed by an ESO employee in July of 2013. A single star, Procyon, one of the stars in Canis Minor, is visible on the far horizon. -JBB Image Credit: ESO/G. Hüdepohl http://www.space.com/21654-thunder-lightning-over-paranal-space-wallpaper.html
