On. Oct. 5, 1962, the European Southern Observatory was born! The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an intergovernmental research study company made up of 16 nations that work together to study the southern sky. Before ESO, all the major ground-based telescopes worldwide remained in the Northern Hemisphere. ESO built some really big and really amazing telescopesin Chile. A glowing laser shines forth from the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope, creating an artificial star 90 km above the surface of the Earth used to tweak the telescopes optics. (Image credit: ESO/G. Hüdepohl (www.atacamaphoto.com)) With these telescopes, researchers have discovered exoplanets like Proxima b, theyve found the earliest star in the Milky Way, and theyve revealed that deep space is broadening at an accelerating rate.Catch up on our whole “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist. On This Day in Space Archive! Still not adequate space? Do not forget to take a look at our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week. Email Hanneke Weitering at [email protected] or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook..
