First images from exoplanet hunter SPHERE

The European SPHERE instrument has been successfully installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and has achieved first light. This powerful new facility can directly image gas-giant exoplanets and dust discs orbiting nearby stars (up to 300 light years away) with unparalleled precision and contrast. SPHERE (the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) instrument was developed by a European consortium led by the Institut de Planétologie et Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG, CNRS/Université Joseph Fourier) with the French Aerospace Lab ONERA, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (CNRS/AMU), Laboratoire d'Etudes Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique (Observatoire de Paris/CNRS/UPMC/Université Paris Diderot), Laboratoire Lagrange (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur/CNRS/Université Nice-Sophia Antipolis), together with institutes in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands, in partnership with ESO (European Southern Observatory). The instrument will be made available to the astronomical community in 2015.

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Author: Redaction