In search of super-Earths: Spectrograph CRIRES+ at ESO's Ver

In search of super-Earths: Spectrograph CRIRES+ at ESO's Very Large Telescope


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IMAGE: CRIRES+ (CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph+) is an instrument installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) that is designed to search for potentially habitable super-Earth exoplanets. The instrument, which saw...
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Credit: ESO
The astronomy research instrument CRIRES+ is designed to study planets outside our solar system. It is now in operation at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Göttingen is part of the international research consortium that built the high-resolution infrared spectrograph at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
When a new optical instrument on a telescope begins its research for the very first time, astronomers call this moment: "First Light". For CRIRES+, the moment came at the beginning of February 2021 when ESO announced "First Light". A spectrograph breaks down the incident light captured by the telescope into its spectrum, in this case in the infrared wavelength range. From the spectrum, scientists can learn more about the star and its planet. The task of CRIRES+ is to search the sky for "super-Earths", planets that move in the habitable zone around their star. Super-Earths are planets outside our solar system whose mass is comparable to that of Earth. The "habitable zone" (also known as the "Goldilocks Zone") means that the planet is in a place where life could be possible theoretically, ie where it is neither too cold (too far away from the star) nor too hot (too close to the star).

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