Press Releases - February 2006
| Current Press Releases |
28 February 2006 - ESO
Cepheids and their 'Cocoons
Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at Cerro Paranal, Chile, and the CHARA Interferometer at Mount Wilson, California, a team of French and North American astronomers has discovered envelopes around three Cepheids, including the Pole star. This is the first time that matter is found surrounding members of this important class of rare and very luminous stars whose luminosity varies in a very regular way.
24 February 2006 - ESA
ESA confirms CryoSat recovery mission
At the latest meeting of the European Space Agency's Earth Observation Programme Board, which took place at ESA's Headquarters in Paris on 23 and 24 February, ESA received the green light from its Member States to build and launch a CryoSat recovery mission, CryoSat-2.
24 February 2006 - ESA
ESA pays tribute to former Director General Antonio Rodotà
Former ESA Director General Antonio Rodotà has died in Rome on Thursday 23 February aged 70.
The ESA Council appointed him Director General starting in June 1997 and he served in this position until June 2003.
23 February 2006 - ESA
First long-duration mission for an ESA astronaut onboard the International Space Station
ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany will soon become the first European to undertake a long-duration mission onboard the International Space Station following his dispatch on the next Shuttle mission (STS-121), currently scheduled for May. That mission, which is due to last six to seven months, will mark many important milestones for European astronauts, European science and European control centres.
23 February 2006 - ESO
A Blast To Chase
ESO's Very Large Telescope took another amazing image, this time of Supernova 2006X inside the Messier 100 spiral galaxy.
23 February 2006 - ESO
Man-made Star Shines in the Southern Sky
Scientists celebrate another major milestone at Cerro Paranal in Chile, home of ESO's Very Large Telescope array. Thanks to their dedicated efforts, they were able to create the first artificial star in the Southern Hemisphere, allowing astronomers to study the Universe in the finest detail. This artificial laser guide star makes it possible to apply adaptive optics systems, that counteract the blurring effect of the atmosphere, almost anywhere in the sky.
20 February 2006 - ILL
Bouncing pear-shaped particles probe big-bang mystery
An international team of scientists has just announced the long-awaited results of the quest for the most sensitive measurements ever of sub-atomic particles: why the Universe contains the matter that we're made of? Theories attempting to explain the creation of matter in the aftermath of the Big Bang now have to be tuned up - or even thrown out.
22 February 2006 - ESA
ESA joins forces with Japan on new infrared sky surveyor
A high-capability new infrared satellite, ASTRO-F, was successfully launched last night by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In a collaborative effort involving ESA and scientists across Europe, the spacecraft is now being prepared to start its mapping of the cosmos. Orbiting the Earth, ASTRO-F (to be renamed Akari (light) now that it is in orbit) will make an unprecedented study of the sky in infrared light, to reveal the distant phenomena hidden from our eyes that tell the story of the formation and evolution processes taking place in the universe.
16 February 2006 - EMBL
Waking a sleeping virus
A detailed structural picture of a molecule that plays a key role in activating the Epstein Barr Virus in human cells has now been obtained by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] and the Institut de Virologie Moléculaire et Structurale [IVMS], associated with the Université Joseph Fourier and the CNRS in Grenoble.
15 February 2006 - CERN
Global Grid service for LHC computing succeeds in gigabyte-per-second challenge
Today, at the international Computing for High Energy and Nuclear Physics 2006 conference (CHEP'06) in Mumbai, India, the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid collaboration (WLCG) officially announced the successful completion of a service challenge. This challenge involved sustaining a continuous flow of physics data on a worldwide Grid infrastructure at up to 1 gigabyte per second. The maximum sustained data rates achieved correspond to transferring a DVD worth of scientific data from CERN every five seconds.
15 February 2006 - ESO
The Invisible Galaxies That Could Not Hide
Astronomers, using the unique capabilities offered by the high-resolution spectrograph UVES on ESO's Very Large Telescope, have found a metal-rich hydrogen cloud in the distant universe. The result may help to solve the missing metal problem and provides insight on how galaxies form.
13 February 2006 - ESO
Spain to Join ESO
Today, during a ceremony in Madrid, an agreement was signed by the Spanish Minister of Education and Science, Mrs. María Jesús San Segundo, and the ESO Director General, Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, affirming their commitment to securing Spanish membership of ESO.
9 February 2006 - ESRF
The Nanoworld of Corrosion
The effect of corrosion has an impact on about 3% of the world's Gross Domestic Product. From a positive point of view, however, chemical attack of metal surfaces may result in surface nano-structures with very interesting technological applications such as catalysts and sensors. Therefore, a better understanding of corrosion processes is required to both prevent it and make the most of it.
7 February 2006 - ESO
How to Steal a Million Stars?
Based on observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope, a team of Italian astronomers reports that the stellar cluster Messier 12 must have lost to our Milky Way galaxy close to one million low-mass stars.
1 February 2006 - CERN
European particle physics sets course for the future
"Particle physics has an exciting future": this was the key message emerging from the Open Symposium on particle physics strategy in Europe, which concluded at Orsay, France, today. Organised by the CERN Council Strategy Group, this Symposium is the first of a series of events that will conclude in Lisbon on 14 July 2006, when the Group will present its long-term vision for particle physics in Europe to the 20 European states of the CERN Council.