Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the driest places in the world. It’s paradise for the professional astronomers who use ESO’s telescopes. Some of the world’s most powerful instruments for astronomical research are here.

ESO has awarded the biggest contract in ground-based astronomy — to build the E-ELT dome and telescope structure. So it’s a good time to take a look at what the E-ELT will be.

Astronomers using telescopes at ESO's observatories in Chile have discovered three planets around a dim dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth. These worlds have sizes and temperatures similar to those of Venus and the Earth, and they are the best targets so far found in the hunt for life elsewhere in the Universe.

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is famed for its dark night skies, which can be enjoyed in their full glory thanks to the absence of light pollution. But even the darkest sky is not completely dark. Astronomers at ESO's observatories often encounter a natural light phenomenon above ESO’s telescopes known as the zodiacal light.

As night falls, telescopes at ESO's observatories are just starting the night’s observations. But all of a sudden a strange phenomenon appears in the distance. What could this be? Let’s take a closer look!

And a unique new project will now allow members of the public to go behind the scenes and follow a planet hunt as it happens!

Not a single confirmed planet outside the Solar System had been detected before the year 1990. But, remarkably, we now know of thousands and have studied many in surprising detail.