ESPRESSO, echelle spectrograph for ESO's Very Large Telescope, sees first light

Dec. 7, 2017
For measuring a star's radial velocity changes, the instrument has a precision of a few centimeters per second.

The Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) has achieved first light on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. The new third-generation echelle spectrograph is the successor to ESO's hugely successful High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument at the La Silla Observatory (echelle gratings are optimized for high diffraction orders). HARPS can attain a precision of around one meter per second in velocity measurements, whereas ESPRESSO aims to achieve a precision of just a few centimeters per second due to advances in technology and its placement on a much bigger telescope.

RELATED: Laser frequency combs aid the search for exoplanets

The lead scientist for ESPRESSO, Francesco Pepe from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, explains its significance. "This success is the result of the work of many people over 10 years," he says. "ESPRESSO isn't just the evolution of our previous instruments like HARPS, but it will be transformational, with its higher resolution and higher precision. And unlike earlier instruments, it can exploit the VLT’s full collecting power: it can be used with all four of the VLT Unit Telescopes at the same time to simulate a 16-meter telescope. ESPRESSO will be unsurpassed for at least a decade; now I am just impatient to find our first rocky planet."

ESPRESSO can detect very small changes in the spectra of stars as a planet orbits. This radial velocity method works because a planet's gravitational pull influences its host star, causing the star to wobble slightly. The less massive the planet, the smaller the wobble, and so for rocky and possibly life-bearing exoplanets to be detected, an instrument with very high precision is required. With this method, ESPRESSO will be able to detect some of the lightest planets ever found.

The test observations included observations of stars and known planetary systems. Comparisons with existing HARPS data showed that ESPRESSO can obtain similar-quality data with dramatically less exposure time.

Source: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1739/

Sponsored Recommendations

What AI demands mean for data centers

Nov. 28, 2023
The 2023 Photonics-Enabled Cloud Computing Summit assembled by Optica took an aggressive approach to calling out the limitations of today’s current technologies.

SLP feature for lighting control available on cameras offering

Nov. 28, 2023
A proprietary structured light projector (SLP) feature is now available on the company’s camera series, including the ace 2, boost R, ace U, and ace L.

Chroma Customer Spotlight - Dr. David Warshaw, About his Lab

Nov. 27, 2023
David Warshaw, Professor and Chair of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Vermont (UVM), walks us through his lab. Learn about his lab’s work with the protein...

Catalog of Filters and Filter Sets

Nov. 27, 2023
This price list provides information about the filter sets Chroma Technology has created for the multitude of fluorochromes that are typically used in epi-fluorescence microscopy...

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Laser Focus World, create an account today!