ELT Archives

Intensity raster map with averaged spectral intensity represented in log-scale. Gray dashed lines delimit the region containing the planetary limb. These represent two concentric ellipses centered at (X, Y) = (57″, 39.75″), marked with a red cross. Two vertical dashed lines were included to outline the region of the limb where the atmospheric aureole is observed. Two solid gray lines delimit the location of the solar limb. -- MDPI

Ariel Mission, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Stellar Cartography, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Venus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Rare Venus Solar Transit Helps Unravel Exoplanet Atmospheres

by Keith CowingDecember 6, 2024December 6, 2024

In the next decade, researchers will start probing the atmosphere of planets as small as Earth and Venus orbiting nearby stars. But although these two Solar System planets are similar […]

Artist’s impression of the hotspot in WASP-76 b (Credit: Tania Cunha (Planetário do Porto - Centro Ciência Viva)/Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço)

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço Paves The Way In The Field Of Exoclimatology

by Keith CowingSeptember 6, 2024September 6, 2024

Three papers about “hot jupiter” WASP-76 b, led by Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço researchers, will be the foundation for understanding the global climate of a giant exoplanet.

Overall and detailed views of ANDES Nasmyth and Coudé parts in the case the instrument is not entirely placed on the Nasmyth platform. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

ANDES, The High Resolution Spectrograph For The ELT: Science Goals, Project Overview And Future Developments

by Keith CowingJuly 24, 2024

The first generation of ELT instruments includes an optical-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, indicated as ELT-HIRES and recently christened ANDES (ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph).

The primary mirror of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), known as M1, will be by far the largest mirror ever made for a telescope. With a diameter of more than 39 metres, M1 is too large to be made from a single piece of glass and will instead consist of 798 hexagonal segments, each about five centimetres thick and 1.5 metres across, working together to collect tens of millions of times as much light as the human eye. An additional 133 segments have been produced to facilitate the maintenance and recoating of the segments once the telescope is operational. ESO has also procured 18 spare segments, bringing the total number to 949. Now, German company SCHOTT has successfully cast the blank for the last of the 949 segments, seen in this photo. Credit: SCHOTT Larger image

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

An Immense Astrobiology Tool: Last Segment Blank Of The Extremely Large Telescope Mirror Delivered

by Keith CowingJune 28, 2024June 28, 2024

Editor’s note: according to the ESO website: “The ELT will revolutionise the study of planets outside our Solar System. It will allow us to obtain direct images of some of […]

The high-resolution ELT instrument ANDES (formerly known as HIRES) will allow astronomers to study astronomical objects that require highly sensitive observations. It will be used to search for signs of life in Earth-like exoplanets, find the first stars born in the Universe, test for possible variations of the fundamental constants of physics, and measure the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion. — ESO Larger image

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release

New Instrument To Search For Signs Of Life On Other Planets

by Keith CowingJune 17, 2024

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is being built on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean desert near the ESO's Paranal Observatory. With its mirror diameter of 39 meters, it will be the world's largest eye in the sky. Here, an artist's rendering shows what the telescope will look like once it is completed on the mountain. Photo: ESO/L. Calçada

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

The ArmazoNes High Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph: The Analysis Of The Universe

by Keith CowingJune 9, 2024June 9, 2024

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement with an international consortium of institutions to develop and build ANDES, the ArmazoNes High Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. The ANDES instrument will […]

Press Release

ESO Signs Agreement For ANDES Life-Seeking Spectrograph On The ELT

by Keith CowingJune 7, 2024July 28, 2026

[ESO] Today, ESO has signed an agreement with an international consortium of institutions for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. The ANDES instrument will […]

Cross-correlation maps produced using models broadened to the measured rotational broadening of each molecule. These CCFs are predicted to show stronger detections as the models used more closely match the broadened planetary lines in the data, and the influence of noise sources on the scale of a single resolution element in the CCF are suppressed. Most notably, when cross-correlating with an SiO model broadened to the 22 km s−1 rotational broadening measured from the H2O CCF, the evidence for the tentative SiO signal increases to an S/N = 4.3, while other regions are suppressed, suggesting a potential planetary origin. The CO signal is boosted to S/N = 6.6 and the H2O signal is now above the S/N = 5 threshold for a detection, with an S/N = 5.7. Cross-correlation with a broadened model containing CO, H2O, and SiO produces the strongest detection of all models tested, with a S/N = 7.5. The CCFs produced using the H2O model and the model containing all three molecular opacities show an offset from the expected velocity, which is discussed further in Section 6.3. To reduce the impact of correlated signals the noise estimates for these CCFs are measured from a down-sampled CCF, with the planet signal excluded (see Section 4.7). For clarity, and following the convention for HCS, the CCFs are presented here at the 1.5 km s−1 CRIRES+ pixel resolution. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Into The Red: An M-band Study of the Chemistry and Rotation of β Pictoris b at High Spectral Resolution

by Keith CowingMay 16, 2024May 16, 2024

High-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy (HRCCS) combined with adaptive optics has been enormously successful in advancing our knowledge of exoplanet atmospheres, from chemistry to rotation and atmospheric dynamics.

Composite and difference maps for Temperature (T) at the ~22km level. (a-b) Composite maps are field medians computed from Chemistry and No-Chemistry joint co-persistence and co-dimension states (defined in Figure 4), which are >95th percentile – ‘High,’ and (c-d) the same but for states

The Impact Of Ozone On Earth-like Exoplanet Climate Dynamics: The Case Of Proxima Centauri b

by Keith CowingApril 30, 2024April 30, 2024

The emergence of the James Webb Space Telescope and the development of other advanced observatories (e.g., ELTs, LIFE and HWO) marks a pivotal moment in the quest to characterize the […]

This research brings together observations of more than 80 young stars that might have planets forming around them in spectacular discs. This small selection from the survey shows 10 discs from the three regions of our galaxy observed in the papers. V351 Ori and V1012 Ori are located in the most distant of the three regions, the gas-rich cloud of Orion, some 1600 light-years from Earth. DG Tau, T Tau, HP Tau, MWC758 and GM Aur are located in the Taurus region, while HD 97048, WW Cha and SZ Cha can be found in Chamaeleon I, all of which are about 600 light-years from Earth. The images shown here were captured using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). SPHERE’s state-of-the-art extreme adaptive optics system corrects for the turbulent effects of Earth’s atmosphere, yielding crisp images of the discs around stars. The stars themselves have been covered with a coronagraph — a circular mask that blocks their intense glare, revealing the faint discs around them. The discs have been scaled to appear roughly the same size in this composition. Credit: ESO/C. Ginski, A. Garufi, P.-G. Valegård et al.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Groundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets Of Planet Birth Around Dozens Of StarsESOGroundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets Of Planet Birth Around Dozens Of Stars

by Keith CowingMarch 5, 2024March 5, 2024

In a series of studies, a team of astronomers has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The stunning images, captured using the European Southern […]

ELT

A Rare Venus Solar Transit Helps Unravel Exoplanet Atmospheres

Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço Paves The Way In The Field Of Exoclimatology

ANDES, The High Resolution Spectrograph For The ELT: Science Goals, Project Overview And Future Developments

An Immense Astrobiology Tool: Last Segment Blank Of The Extremely Large Telescope Mirror Delivered

New Instrument To Search For Signs Of Life On Other Planets

The ArmazoNes High Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph: The Analysis Of The Universe

ESO Signs Agreement For ANDES Life-Seeking Spectrograph On The ELT

Into The Red: An M-band Study of the Chemistry and Rotation of β Pictoris b at High Spectral Resolution

The Impact Of Ozone On Earth-like Exoplanet Climate Dynamics: The Case Of Proxima Centauri b

Groundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets Of Planet Birth Around Dozens Of StarsESOGroundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets Of Planet Birth Around Dozens Of Stars

Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 11 November 2026: Weather Update And Forecast

Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 10 November 2026: Weather Update Forecast

Dispersal of Bacterial Spores Away From Spacecraft on the Martian Surface is Unlikely to Contaminate Subsequent Life-detection Samples

From Exo-Earth Detection to Atmospheric Characterization: Enabling Phase-Dependent Molecular Detection SNR in EXOSIMS

Ancient Rocks Reveal When Earth’s Tectonic Engine Switched On