First Light for PoET: Shining (Sun)light on Exoplanet Research

Portugal installs solar telescope at Paranal Observatory to study exoplanets - Portuguese Space Agency

In the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile, the altitude, low humidity and atmospheric stability make the Paranal Observatory one of the most privileged places in the world for observing the cosmos. It was there that, in early April, a telescope built in Portugal pointed at the Sun for the first time. This was no symbolic gesture: it was the culmination of years of engineering work, developed from scratch by the Institute of Astrophysics and Space…

First light for PoET: shining (sun)light on exoplanet research

The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET), installed at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Paranal site in Chile, has made its first observations. The telescope will work with ESO's ESPRESSO instrument to study the Sun in detail. Described as a solar telescope for planet hunters, PoET aims to understand how the variation in the light from stars like the Sun can mask the presence of planets orbiting them, helping us in our search for w…