First light for SPHERE exoplanet imager
Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - 05:00
in Astronomy & Space
SPHERE—the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument—has been installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. This powerful facility for studying exoplanets uses multiple advanced techniques in combination. It offers dramatically better performance than existing instruments and has produced impressive views of dust discs around nearby stars and other targets during the very first days of observations. It is expected to revolutionize the study of exoplanets and circumstellar discs. Included is one of the best images so far of the ring of dust around the nearby star HR 4796A.