The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is ESO’s flagship optical-infrared telescope complex at Paranal, a frontline instrument for exploring our Milky Way and beyond.
Astronomers have detected helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky 'super-Earth' 48 light-years away that orbits in its star's habitable zone. The finding has confirmed an atmosphere around a habitable-zone rocky exoplanet for the first time and has been published in Science; teams used ground-based infrared spectroscopy and modelling.
Durham researchers using supercomputer simulations show that a head‑on collision with Gaia Sausage likely caused a dramatic reorientation of the Milky Way’s disc, a process scientists describe as a “disc flip.” The event would have reshaped the galaxy’s spokes, bulge and halo, potentially altering the Solar System’s ancient path.