JÜLICH, Germany, Feb. 25, 2022 For seven years, an international research team has collected radio signals from space. The data have now been published
E-Mail
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. view more
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
CRIRES+ instrument sees first light at Paranal
03 Feb 2021
ESO infrared spectrograph will now assist in search for super-Earth exoplanets.
On the lookout: CRIRES+
An upgraded high-resolution infrared spectrograph installed on the European Southern Observatory s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, Chile, has now seen first light.
CRIRES+, built by ESO and a five-strong European consortium, is an evolution of the CRIRES instrument operational at Paranal since 2006.
The first CRIRES, or CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph, was located at Unit Telescope 1 of the VLT. CRIRES+ has been installed at UT 3, to extend the work of its predecessor and search for super-Earth exoplanets, worlds larger than Earth but smaller than our solar system s gas giants.