| Autor: |
Maria Rosa Zapatero Osorio, Pedro Figueira, Ricardo Gomes, Giorgio Toso, Christopher Broeg, Denis Mégevand, Marco Landoni, Paul Bristow, Danuta Sosnowska, Carlos Martins, Bernard Delabre, Nuno C. Santos, Marco Riva, I. Hughes, Paolo Spanò, Charles Maire, André Moitinho, Alexandre Cabral, Stefano Cristiani, Pedro Carvas, Igor Coretti, M. Comari, Paolo Molaro, Guido Cupani, Olaf Iwert, L. Genolet, Valentina D'Odorico, Filippo Maria Zerbi, Francesco Pepe, Samuel Santana Tschudi, Christophe Lovis, Jean-Louis Lizon, A. Fragoso, Jonay I. González Hernández, Jose Luis Rasilla, Gerardo Avila, M. A. Monteiro, Jorge Lima, M. Affolter, Florian Kerber, Rafael Rebolo, Sérgio F. Sousa, M. Mannetta, Paolo Conconi, Matteo Viel, Hans Dekker, Paolo Di Marcantonio, Eros Vanzella, M. Amate, Manuel Abreu, Paolo Santin, F. Tenegi, M. Fleury, Vincenzo De Caprio, Roberto Cirami, V. Baldini, João Coelho |
| Rok vydání: |
2012 |
| Předmět: |
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| Zdroj: |
Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference Series |
| ISSN: |
0277-786X |
| Popis: |
ESPRESSO, the VLT rocky exoplanets hunter, will combine the efficiency of modern echelle spectrograph with extreme radial-velocity precision. It will be installed at Paranal on ESO's VLT in order to achieve a gain of two magnitudes with respect to its predecessor HARPS, and the instrumental radial-velocity precision will be improved to reach 10 cm/s level. We have constituted a Consortium of astronomical research institutes to fund, design and build ESPRESSO on behalf of and in collaboration with ESO, the European Southern Observatory. The project has passed the preliminary design review in November 2011. The spectrograph will be installed at the so-called "Combined Coude Laboratory" of the VLT, it will be linked to the four 8.2 meters Unit Telescopes (UT) through four optical "Coude trains" and will be operated either with a single telescope or with up to four UTs. In exchange of the major financial and human effort the building Consortium will be awarded with guaranteed observing time (GTO), which will be invested in a common scientific program. Thanks to its characteristics and the ability of combining incoherently the light of 4 large telescopes, ESPRESSO will offer new possibilities in many fields of astronomy. Our main scientific objectives are, however, the search and characterization of rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone of quiet, near-by G to M-dwarfs, and the analysis of the variability of fundamental physical constants. In this paper, we present the ambitious scientific objectives, the capabilities of ESPRESSO, the technical solutions for the system and its subsystems, enlightening the main differences between ESPRESSO and its predecessors. The project aspects of this facility are also described, from the consortium and partnership structure to the planning phases and milestones. |
| Databáze: |
OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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