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Image of the broken fragments surrounding Fragment B of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 observed with FORS1 on ESO's VLT in four filters (B, V, R, and I). As the telescope was tracking the comet, the stars appear as coloured trails, indicating the order in which the comet was observed in the different filters. North is up and East is to the left.

Watch out for comet SW3, which might cause a meteor shower in late May

18 May 2022

Here's hoping that a meteor shower predicted by astronomers for almost a century will be seen this month, says Abigail Beall
Sun Solar Flare Particles coronal mass ejections for background computer desktop screen display; Shutterstock ID 752393257; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Why the next big solar storm might hit Earth without warning

18 May 2022

A big solar storm could fry the internet, but at least space weather forecasts would give us a day or two to prepare. Or maybe not, because physicists have just discovered a new kind of solar storm that strikes without notice
This image shows the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) looking up at the Milky Way as well as the location of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at our galactic centre. Highlighted in the box is the image of Sagittarius A* taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. Located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, ALMA is the most sensitive of all the observatories in the EHT array, and ESO is a co-owner of ALMA on behalf of its European Member States.

What's next for Event Horizon Telescope after its black hole pictures?

12 May 2022

Now that the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has released its image of the Milky Way's black hole, the team is focusing on making movies of the two photographed black holes and finding other distant black holes large enough to study
Black hole

First picture of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole revealed

12 May 2022

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has released the first picture of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, and it’s just as predicted

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