VLT Archives

TESS target pixel files for TOI-260 for sector 3 (left), and for TOI-286 for sector 1 ( right). The remaining sectors are shown in Appendix A. The target star is labelled as 1 and marked by a white cross in each case. All sources from the Gaia DR3 catalogue down to a magnitude contrast of 8 are shown as red circles, with the size proportional to the contrast. The SPOC pipeline aperture is overplotted in shaded red squares. -- astro-ph.EP

Three Super-Earths And A Possible Water World From TESS And ESPRESSO

by Keith CowingJune 12, 2024June 12, 2024

Since 2018, the ESPRESSO spectrograph at the VLT has been hunting for planets in the Southern skies via the RV method. One of its goals is to follow up candidate […]

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 […]

Schematic view of the four 8.2m Unit Telescopes of the VLT (multi-UT mode) feeding, through the Coude train, the Front-End unit of the ESPRESSO spectrograph located in the Com- ´ bined Coude Laboratory. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

ESPRESSO on VLT: An Instrument For Exoplanet Research

by Keith CowingFebruary 1, 2024February 1, 2024

ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) is a VLT ultra-stable high resolution spectrograph installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile at the end of 2017 and […]

Voyager 2/ISS images of Uranus and Neptune released shortly after the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively, compared with a reprocessing of the individual filter images in this study to determine the best estimate of the true colours of these planets. CREDIT Patrick Irwin.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Neptune, Press Release, Uranus

Calibrating Instruments For Exoplanets: What Neptune And Uranus Really Look Like

by Keith CowingJanuary 6, 2024May 12, 2025

Neptune is fondly known for being a rich blue and Uranus green – but a new study has revealed that the two ice giants are actually far closer in colour […]

Schematic of the observing routine on Jupiter by VLT/ESPRESSO on the 22 July 2019. The small circles represent the FOV of the fibre proportional to the size of Jupiter’s disk in the context of these observations (0.5 arc seconds in diameter for the size of the FOV), and their respective labels. We also included a grid to tentatively map the relative position of each observing position in latitude and longitude. Grid lines have intervals of 15∘ on both coordinates. The solid black line on the right side of the spherical grid represents the morning terminator, while the blue dotted line marks the location of the 12 h local time meridian. The picture of the planet’s disk was taken from the Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory. Picture credits go to Gary Walker.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Press Release

Comparative Exolanetology: Jupiter Targeted By VLT/ESPRESSO Exoplanet Hunter

by Keith CowingDecember 26, 2023December 26, 2023

For the first time, an instrument to find planets light years away was used on an object in the Solar System, in a study on Jupiter’s winds.

This artist’s impression shows the HH 1177 system, which is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring galaxy of our own. The young and massive stellar object glowing in the centre is collecting matter from a dusty disc while also expelling matter in powerful jets. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, a team of astronomers managed to find evidence for the presence of this disc by observing its rotation. This is the first time a disc around a young star — the type of disc identical to those forming planets in our own galaxy — has been discovered in another galaxy. CREDIT ESO/M. Kornmesser

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release

Astronomers Discover A Disc Around A Star In Another Galaxy For The First Time

by Keith CowingNovember 30, 2023November 30, 2023

In a remarkable discovery, astronomers have found a disc around a young star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy neighbouring ours. It’s the first time such a disc, identical […]

Detection of the planet using model templates of the full planet, H2O and CO using cross-correlation (top row) and the likelihood ratio (bottom row). The radial velocity is shown here in the barycentric restframe. In the top panel we also show the cross-correlation value for a reference spectrum, which was taken at the same separation on the other side of the star. In the bottom panels we indicate the location of the star and the planet and the expected velocity of the planet. -- astro-ph.IM

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

β Pictoris b Through The Eyes Of The Upgraded CRIRES+

by Keith CowingNovember 24, 2023November 24, 2023

Context: High-resolution spectrographs fed by adaptive optics (AO) provide a unique opportunity to characterize directly imaged exoplanets. Observations with such instruments allow us to probe the atmospheric composition, spin rotation, […]

Implementation of the FIM inside the IFS arm of SPHERE. On the left drawing, the SPHERE components are labelled in black, while the FIM components are labelled in red. The inset in the top right shows the components of the core optics bench. The light path in the system is fully illustrated in Vigan et al. (2022b, their Fig. 3). The picture on the right shows the FIM at the end of the installation in SPHERE. The IFS Lyot wheel is visible in the bottom left of the picture. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

First Light of VLT/HiRISE: High-resolution Spectroscopy Of Young Giant Exoplanets

by Keith CowingNovember 17, 2023

A major endeavor of this decade is the direct characterization of young giant exoplanets at high spectral resolution to determine the composition of their atmosphere and infer their formation processes […]

(a) A map of Europa’s trailing hemisphere, showing a selection of four of the 29 considered “rings of constant radiolysis” outlined in black, which are used to determine whether the weak 2.07 µm absorption feature is associated with Europa’s large-scale geologic units. The chaos terrains are shown in red and Pwyll crater and its ejecta are orange. For each ring, projected detector pixels are shown and their assigned geologic unit indicated by color, where chaos terrains are dark red, Pwyll crater and its ejecta are orange, and the ridged plains are gray. (Europa map image credit: NASA/JPL/ Bj¨orn J´onsson). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Europa, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Spatial Distribution of the Unidentified 2.07 μm Absorption Feature on Europa and Implications for its Origin

by Keith CowingAugust 30, 2023August 30, 2023

A weak absorption feature at 2.07 μm on Europa’s trailing hemisphere has been suggested to arise from radiolytic processing of an endogenic salt, possibly sourced from the interior ocean.

Mean slit orientation (yellow rectangle) overlaid on scattered-light images

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Status Report

Spatially Resolving PAHs in Herbig Ae Disks with VISIR-NEAR at the VLT

by Keith CowingMarch 14, 2023March 14, 2023

We use the long-slit spectroscopy mode of the VISIR-NEAR experiment to perform diffraction-limited observations of eight nearby Herbig Ae protoplanetary disks.

VLT

Three Super-Earths And A Possible Water World From TESS And ESPRESSO

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

ESPRESSO on VLT: An Instrument For Exoplanet Research

Calibrating Instruments For Exoplanets: What Neptune And Uranus Really Look Like

Comparative Exolanetology: Jupiter Targeted By VLT/ESPRESSO Exoplanet Hunter

Astronomers Discover A Disc Around A Star In Another Galaxy For The First Time

β Pictoris b Through The Eyes Of The Upgraded CRIRES+

First Light of VLT/HiRISE: High-resolution Spectroscopy Of Young Giant Exoplanets

The Spatial Distribution of the Unidentified 2.07 μm Absorption Feature on Europa and Implications for its Origin

Spatially Resolving PAHs in Herbig Ae Disks with VISIR-NEAR at the VLT

NASA Establishes Mars Forward Operational Risk and Contamination Evaluation (M-FORCE) Tiger Team to Shape Mars Planetary Protection Protocols

Opportunity to Contribute to NASA DARES Community White Paper on Phototrophic Biosignatures

The Search For Life Elsewhere: Avoiding Hype and Fostering Public Understanding

Panchromatic Spectra of Nearby Low-mass and Sun-like Stars with Directly Imageable Habitable Zones

Alfred: A Flexible, User-Friendly Python Package for Exoplanet Confirmation