The Very Large Telescope and the star system Alpha Centauri
The Alpha Centauri Star System
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ESO Signs Agreement with Breakthrough Initiatives
ESO has signed an agreement with the
Breakthrough Initiatives to adapt the Very Large Telescope
instrumentation in Chile to conduct a search for planets in the nearby
star system Alpha Centauri. Such planets could be the targets for an
eventual launch of miniature space probes by the Breakthrough Starshot
initiative.
ESO, represented by the Director General, Tim de Zeeuw, has signed an agreement with the Breakthrough Initiatives, represented by Pete Worden, Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Executive Director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. The agreement provides funds for the VISIR (VLT Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared) instrument, mounted at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to be modified in order to greatly enhance its ability to search for potentially habitable planets around Alpha Centauri,
the closest stellar system to the Earth. The agreement also provides
for telescope time to allow a careful search programme to be conducted
in 2019.
The discovery in 2016
of a planet, Proxima b, around Proxima Centauri, the third and faintest
star of the Alpha Centauri system, adds even further impetus to this
search.
Knowing where the nearest exoplanets are is of paramount interest for
Breakthrough Starshot, the research and engineering programme launched
in April 2016, which aims to demonstrate proof of concept for ultra-fast
light-driven “nanocraft”, laying the foundation for the first launch to
Alpha Centauri within a generation.
Detecting a habitable planet is an enormous challenge due to the
brightness of the planetary system’s host star, which tends to overwhelm
the relatively dim planets. One way to make this easier is to observe
in the mid-infrared wavelength range, where the thermal glow from an
orbiting planet greatly reduces the brightness gap between it and its
host star. But even in the mid-infrared, the star remains millions of
times brighter than the planets to be detected, which calls for a
dedicated technique to reduce the blinding stellar light.
The existing mid-infrared instrument VISIR on the VLT will provide
such performance if it were enhanced to greatly improve the image
quality using adaptive optics, and adapted to employ a technique called
coronagraphy to reduce the stellar light and thereby reveal the possible
signal of potential terrestrial planets. Breakthrough Initiatives will
pay for a large fraction of the necessary technologies and development
costs for such an experiment, and ESO will provide the required
observing capabilities and time.
The new hardware includes an instrument module contracted to Kampf Telescope Optics
(KTO), Munich, which will host the wavefront sensor, and a novel
detector calibration device. In addition, there are plans for a new
coronagraph to be developed jointly by University of Liège (Belgium) and
Uppsala University (Sweden).
Detecting and studying potentially habitable planets orbiting other
stars will be one of the main scientific goals of the upcoming European
Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Although the increased size of the E-ELT will be essential to obtaining
an image of a planet at larger distances in the Milky Way, the light
collecting power of the VLT is just sufficient to image a planet around
the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
The developments for VISIR will also be beneficial for the future METIS
instrument, to be mounted on the E-ELT, as the knowledge gained and
proof of concept will be directly transferable. The huge size of the
E-ELT should allow METIS to detect and study exoplanets the size of Mars
orbiting Alpha Centauri, if they exist, as well as other potentially
habitable planets around other nearby stars.
More Information
More Information
The Breakthrough Initiatives
are a program of scientific and technological exploration founded in
2015 by Internet investor and science philanthropist Yuri Milner to
explore the Universe, seek scientific evidence of life beyond Earth, and
encourage public debate from a planetary perspective.
Breakthrough Starshot is a $100 million research and engineering
program aiming to demonstrate proof of concept for a new technology,
enabling ultra-light unmanned space flight at 20% of the speed of light,
and to lay the foundations for a flyby mission to Alpha Centauri within
a generation.
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in
Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical
observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium,
Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an
ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of
powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make
important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in
promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO
operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla,
Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large
Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical
observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and
is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is
the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in
visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical
project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is
building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT,
which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
Links
Contacts
Markus Kasper
ESO
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6359
Email: mkasper@eso.org
Breakthrough Initiatives
Email: media@breakthroughprize.org
Janet Wootten
Rubenstein Communications, Inc.
Tel: +1 212 843 8024
Email: jwootten@rubenstein.com
Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
Source: ESO
