Symposium S14  30 June - 1 July 2022

ESO@60: A stairway to the Universe

News: A Symposium at EAS2022 to celebrate ESO 60th anniversary

Aims and scope

On the 5th of October 2022, the European Southern Observatory will be celebrating its 60th anniversary. From an idea by visionary European astronomers in the 1950s, to the signing of the ESO Convention on October 5th,1962, ESO is the world's most productive ground-based observatory with over 17000 refereed publications based on data acquired with its facilities. Furthermore, ESO facilities have contributed to major scientific discoveries, like the accelerated expansion of the universe, the existence of black holes, detection and characterization of exoplanets, the formation and evolution of stars and planets, and the history of galaxies. By realizing the visions of the founders, ESO fostered and supported the ingenuity and scientific creativity of the scientists in its member states (*). In this Symposium, to be held during the EAS annual meeting in Valencia, Spain, in June 2022, we celebrate the scientific achievements with the ESO facilities over the last 60 years. The program will consist of six blocks of 1.5 hrs each, with each block covering a broad theme, starting from Extrasolar planets, Astrochemistry and Nucleo-synthesis, Stellar populations, Black holes, Cosmology & Galaxy evolution and then onto the ELT and the future. The topic in each block will be introduced by a keynote speaker to illustrate how the ESO facilities and their operations, including the end-to-end dataflow system and the ESO science archive facility, contributed to the scientific results. Following this introduction, each block will lead on to the scientific highlights in cutting edge research pursued by exciting and challenging on going observing programmes. From the scientific achievements with ESO facilities over the last 60 years, one looks ahead to the next technological challenges and discoveries. The future endeavors will be facilitated by the next big "eye'' on the sky, the Extremely Large Telescope with its 39 meters diameter mirror, and the synergies with other facilities, those at ESO and worldwide

(*) On October 5, 1962, a Convention was signed in Paris between Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden in order to establish the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO). Subsequently, Denmark (1967), Switzerland and Italy (1982) joined the Organisation. The number of member states have increased since then, with sixteen members state now being full members of ESO

Programme

  • Extrasolar planets
  • Astrochemistry and nucleo-synthesis
  • Stellar populations and star formation
  • Black holes in galaxies and their roles as seeds for galaxy formation
  • Cosmology & galaxy evolution
  • Looking ahead: the next decade

Invited speakers

  • Didier Queloz (ETH, Zurich, Switzeland)
  • Paola Caselli (MPE, Garching, Germany)
  • Joao Alves (Univ. of Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
  • Violette Impellizzeri (Leiden Univ., Leiden, The Netherlands)
  • Francoise Combes (Obs. de Paris, Paris, France)
  • Jochen Liske (Univ. of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany)
  • Roberta Zanin (CTA Observatory gGmbH, Heidelberg, Germany)
  • Guy Perrin (LESIA, Obs. de Paris, Paris,France)

Scientific organisers

    SOC: Xavier Barcons (ESO), Linda Tacconi (MPE), Amina Helmi (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen), Rob Ivison (ESO), Antoine Merand (ESO), Michele Cirasuolo (ESO), Paola Andreani (ESO), Francisca Kemper (ESO)
    Co- Chairs: Magda Arnaboldi (ESO), Carlos De Breuck (ESO), Bruno Leibundgut (ESO)

Contact

marnabol @ eso.org

Updated on Tue Apr 12 16:42:57 CEST 2022