Category Astronomy/Space

Artist’s impression of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in its enclosure on Cerro Armazones, a 3060-metre mountaintop in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The 39-metre E-ELT will be the largest optical/infrared telescope in the world — the world’s biggest eye on the sky. Operations are planned to start early in the next decade, and the E-ELT will tackle some of the biggest scientific challenges of our time. The design for the E-ELT shown here is preliminary. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, such as those planned for use as model organisms for variable gravity studies aboard the International Space Station.
Credits: NASA

1.The dark matter density 500 million years after the Big Bang, centred on what would become the Milky Way. Red, blue and yellow colours indicate low, intermediate and high density regions.
Credit: Robert J. J. Grand, Facundo A. Gomez, Federico Marinacci, Ruediger Pakmor, Volker Springel, David J. R. Campbell, Carlos S. Frenk, Adrian Jenkins and Simon D. M. White
2. A composite of images from the simulation. (Left) Projected gas density of the galaxy environment about 10 billion years ago. Depicted are filamentary gas structures that feed the main galaxy at the centre. (Middle) Bird’s eye view of the gas disc in the present day. The fine detailed spiral pattern is clearly visible. (Right) Side-on view of the same gas disc in the present day...

1. Artist’s impression of Type Ia Supernova, Image: ESA
2. The left is the “new image” from a couple of nights ago while the middle one is the “reference” image taken a couple of years ago, the right image is the difference between “new” and “reference.” The researchers said there is clearly an exploding star in the outskirts of the galaxy. Credit: ANU