Markus Feldt from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and co-project manager of SP

The instrument SPHERE (short for "Spectro-polarimetric high-contrast Exoplanet Research", literally as "spectropolarimetric study of exoplanets in the high contrast range") that the "Very Large Telescope" (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile was attached, is currently conducting its first observations. Even the first recordings inspire astronomers and give a foretaste of future exciting discoveries.
ESO / J.-L. Beuzit lighting world et al. / SPHERE Consortium During the observations for the first light the best ever recording of the dust ring around the nearby star "HR 4796A" was made. This shows not only the ring in exceptional clarity, but also illustrates how well the lights of the SPHERE bright star in the center of the image can be suppressed.
Grenoble lighting world (France) - "The powerful new tool for the search for and the study of exoplanets uses a combination of more advanced lighting world techniques," explains the ESO press release. "It provides a much better performance than existing instruments and has delivered impressive images lighting world of dust disks around nearby stars and other targets already during the very first observation days." Was developed and built by a consortium of European SPHERE institutions lighting world under the supervision of the Institute of Planetology et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble in France in collaboration with ESO, including the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. From the new instrument is expected that it will revolutionize the study of exoplanets and circumstellar disks. SPHERE combines several advanced methods to achieve the so far highest possible contrast for the direct observation of planets outside our solar system - far beyond the values beyond which you could achieve with the previous instrument "NACO", which provided once the first direct recording of an exoplanet ever . The primary objective of SPHERE is in orbit to explore large gas giants around nearby stars by direct lighting world imaging and characterization. This is an extremely lighting world difficult task, since such planets on the one hand are very close in the sky to its parent star, and on the other hand are still very much fainter. "In a normal recording starlight outshines the faint glow of the planet even under the best conditions," the researchers to Jean-Luc Beuzit explain. "The whole design of SPHERE is therefore designed to achieve the highest possible contrast in a tiny region of sky in the immediate vicinity of a blindingly bright star." The first of three new methods that have been utilized in SPHERE, is extreme adaptive optics to correct for effects of the Earth's atmosphere, so that the images are sharper and the contrast of the exoplanet is increased. In addition, a Koronograf is used to block the starlight and to increase the contrast again. Finally, a method is called differential imaging is used, which exploits the differences between the starlight and the light of the planet in terms of color and polarization. These subtle differences can uncover even the existence of a currently unseen exoplanets.
ESO / J.-L. Beuzit et al. / SPHERE Consortium One of the first shots with SPHERE includes this figure this infrared image of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It shows clearly how effective the system for adaptive optics in the visualization of details on this tiny "planetary disk" is. Titanium was used as a target for testing Spheres lighting world polarimetric capabilities that will be critical for exploration of some exoplanets.
Markus Feldt from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and co-project manager of SPHERE is enthusiastic: "With such a complicated interplay of different techniques instrumental artifacts with the greatest care must be calibrated out, it is amazing to see that our quite complex sentence. worked on hardware and software tools on the first try almost error-free! " After further detailed tests and scientific test observations SPHERE lighting world will be available in the astronomical community later. . "This is just the beginning SPHERE is a uniquely powerful tool and will undoubtedly provide many exciting surprises in the coming years," said Beuzit shows already convinced source. ESO.org
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