HUNTING MOLECULES TO FIND NEW PLANETS

Jun 20, 2018



The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Credit: G. Hüdepohl/ESO

Each exoplanet revolves around a star, like the Earth around the Sun. This is why it is generally impossible to obtain images of an exoplanet, so dazzling is the light of its star.

However, a team of astronomers, led by a researcher from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and member of NCCR PlanetS, had the idea of detecting certain molecules that are present in the planet’s atmosphere in order to make it visible, provided that these same molecules are absent from its star. Thanks to this innovative technique, the device is only sensitive to the selected molecules, making the star invisible and allowing the astronomers to observe the planet directly. The results appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Until now, astronomers could only very rarely directly observe the exoplanets they discovered, as they are masked by the enormous luminous intensity of their stars. Only a few planets located very far from their host stars could be distinguished on a picture, in particular thanks to the SPHERE instrument installed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, and similar instruments elsewhere.

Jens Hoeijmakers, researcher at the Astronomy Department of the Observatory of the Faculty of Science of the UNIGE and member of NCCR PlanetS, wondered if it would be possible to trace the molecular composition of the planets. “By focusing on molecules present only on the studied exoplanet that are absent from its host star, our technique would effectively “erase” the star,leaving only the exoplanet,” he explains.

More:
https://www.astrobio.net/also-in-news/hunting-molecules-to-find-new-planets/




First light for the Four Laser Guide Star Facility on ESO's Very Large Telescope
April 27, 2016, ESO


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-04-laser-star-facility-eso-large.html#jCp


Beautiful images of the Very Large Telescope:

https://tinyurl.com/y9eqdmyu