The Astronomy Department

Latest News

Using cosmic lens to discover most distant star ever observed

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from UNIGE, has detected the most distant individual star observed to date, located 9 billion light-years from Earth. This star, normally too weak to be seen, could be observed thanks to a gravit…

ESO VLT works as giant telescope for the first time with ESPRESSO

The European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has achieved a new milestone thanks to its ESPRESSO tool. With this, all four of VLT’s 8.2-meter Unit Telescopes are working together as a single giant telescope. This is a huge achievement for th…

Astronomers Detect Whirlpool Movement in Early Galaxies

Very far from the Earth and therefore difficult to observe, the first galaxies of the Universe were formed just after its birth. Nicknamed "baby-galaxies", they still remain mysterious. An international team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridg…

The anatomy of a Cosmic Snake reveals the structure of distant galaxies

We have a fair understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that regulate star formation in galaxies, from the interstellar matter to the diffuse clouds distributed in space, whose gravitational contrac - tion leads to the birth of sta…

First Light for ESPRESSO — the Next Generation Planet Hunter

The Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) has successfully made its first observations. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, ESPRESSO will search for exoplanets with unprecedented preci…

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