This article may be too technical for most readers to understand.(October 2012) |
ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet- and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) [1] is a third-generation, fiber fed, cross-dispersed, echelle spectrograph mounted on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The unit saw its first light with one VLT in December 2017 and first light with all four VLT units in February 2018. [2]
ESPRESSO is the successor of a line of echelle spectrometers that include CORAVEL, Elodie, Coralie, and HARPS. It measures changes in the light spectrum with great sensitivity, and is being used to search for Earth-size rocky exoplanets via the radial velocity method. For example, Earth induces a radial-velocity variation of 9 cm/s on the Sun; this gravitational "wobble" causes minute variations in the color of sunlight, invisible to the human eye but detectable by the instrument. [3] The telescope light is fed to the instrument, located in the VLT Combined-Coude Laboratory 70 meters away from the telescope, where the light from up to four unit telescopes of the VLT can be combined.
ESPRESSO builds on the foundations laid by the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument at the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory. ESPRESSO benefits not only from the much larger combined light-collecting capacity of the four 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes, but also from improvements in the stability and calibration accuracy that are now possible by laser frequency comb technology. The requirement is to reach 10 cm/s, [5] but the aimed goal is to obtain a precision level of a few cm/s. This would mean a large step forward over current radial-velocity spectrographs like ESO's HARPS. The HARPS instrument can attain a precision of 97 cm/s (3.5 km/h), [6] with an effective precision of the order of 30 cm/s, [7] making it one of only two spectrographs worldwide with such accuracy.[ citation needed ] The ESPRESSO would greatly exceed this capability making detection of Earth-size planets from ground-based instruments possible. Commissioning of ESPRESSO at the VLT started late 2017.
The instrument is capable of operating in 1-UT mode (using one of the telescopes) and in 4-UT mode. In 4-UT mode, in which all the four 8-m telescopes are connected incoherently to form a 16-m equivalent telescope, the spectrograph detects extremely faint objects. [3] [8]
For example, for G2V type stars:
The best-suited candidate stars for ESPRESSO are non-active, non-rotating, quiet G dwarfs to red dwarfs. It operates at the peak of its efficiency for a spectral type up to M4-type stars.
For calibration, ESPRESSO uses a laser frequency comb (LFC), with backup of two Th Ar lamps. It features three instrumental modes: singleHR, singleUHR and multiMR [ definition needed ]. In the singleHR mode ESPRESSO can be fed by any of the four UTs. [11]
All design work was completed and finalised by April 2013, with the manufacturing phase of the project commencing thereafter. [1] ESPRESSO was tested on June 3, 2016. [13] ESPRESSO first light occurred on September 25, 2016, during which they spotted various objects, among them the star 60 Sgr A. [14] [15] After being shipped to Chile, installed at the VLT, ESPRESSO saw its first light there on 27 November 2017, in 1-UT mode, observing the star Tau Ceti; [16] [17] [18] the first star observed in the 4-UT mode was on February 3, 2018. [19] [20] [21]
ESPRESSO has been opened to the astronomical community in the 1-UT mode (one single telescope used), and is producing scientific data since October 24, 2018. On quiet stars it has already demonstrated radial-velocity precision of 25 cm/s over a full night. However, there have been some problems, for example, in light collecting efficiency which was around 30% lower than expected and required. And so, some fine-tuning, including replacing the parts causing the efficiency problem and subsequent re-testing, were to be done on the instrument before the full 4-UT mode was open to the scientific community in April 2019. [22] [ needs update ] A problem was discovered in the ESPRESSO charge-coupled device controllers, digital imaging hardware, where a differential nonlinearity issue has reduced the resolution obtainable more severely than was previously feared. The ESO detector team that determined the source of the problem is currently, as of June 2019, [update] working on a new version of the associated hardware in order to remedy this hopefully temporary setback. [23]
On August 29, 2019, the ESPRESSO ETC was updated to reflect the gain in transmission after the technical mission of July. This gain influx was, on average, ≈50% in the UHR and HR modes and ≈40% in the MR. [24]
As of April 6, 2020, the red radial velocity detector has, at least for a very short time, achieved the ≈10 cm/s precision, while the blue detector has so far only managed ≈60 cm/s. [25] Due to the limited spectral coverage and lack of reliability, the Laser Frequency Comb (LFC) is currently not integrated into the telescope and for now complete wavelength calibration will have to rely on the two backup ThAr lamps, with resultant radial velocity measurements values limited by photon noise, stellar jitter and so less precise than expected. [26] The ESPRESSO operator and detector teams are working to characterize and correct the problem, with a dedicated mission expected to take place during 2020. [25]
On May 24, 2020, a team led by A. Suárez Mascareño confirmed the existence of the exoplanet Proxima b, finding it to be about 1.17 times the mass of Earth - smaller than the older estimate of 1.3 times. They also suggested it is located in the habitable zone of its star, which it orbits in 11.2 days. ESPRESSO achieved an accuracy of 26 cm/s, about three times the accuracy obtained with HARPS. They also found a second signal in the data that could be of planetary origin with a semi-amplitude of only 40 cm/s and a 5.15 day period. [27] [28]
On August 28, 2020, it was announced that in the coming weeks minimal science operations are planned to be resumed at the Paranal Observatory, following after a 5-month suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [29] [30]
As of June 11, 2021, there is still an ongoing issue with the blue cryostat detector caused by temperature instabilities, and there has been a communication problem between the Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector and the rest of the instrument, these issues are currently reducing the detection resolution achievable with the instrument. [31]
A major instrument intervention is scheduled between May 1 and May 16, 2022, and the instrument will be out of operations between May 1 until around May 23. After the intervention, an improvement in the overall instrument performance, and in the radial velocity stability, particularly in the blue detector, is expected. [32]
As a result of the instrument intervention the blue cryostat stability has dramatically improved. However, because of a change of the cross dispersion and dispersion direction positions (in both the x and y direction) from the red and blue cryostat detectors induced by the instrument intervention, combining data from different pixels to produce a focused image has become problematic in the MR4x2 mode and the new HR4x2 mode. This problem should be fixed in the new pipeline version, i.e. in an upcoming software update. [33]
The main scientific objectives for ESPRESSO are: [34] [35]
ESPRESSO is being developed by a consortium consisting on the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and seven scientific institutes:
The principal investigator is Francesco Pepe.
ESPRESSO | |||
---|---|---|---|
Telescope | VLT (8m) | ||
Scope | Rocky planets | ||
Sky aperture | 4 arcsec | ||
R | ≈200.000 | ||
λ coverage | 380 nm-686 nm [36] | ||
λ precision | 5 m/s | ||
RV stability | < 10 cm/s | ||
4-VLT mode (D = 16 m) with RV = 1 m/s | |||
Source: [9] [37] [35] |
Planet Mass | Distance AU | Radial velocity (vradial) | Note |
---|---|---|---|
Jupiter | 1 | 28.4 m/s | |
Jupiter | 5 | 12.7 m/s | |
Neptune | 0.1 | 4.8 m/s | |
Neptune | 1 | 1.5 m/s | |
Super-Earth (5 M🜨) | 0.1 | 1.4 m/s | |
Super-Earth (5 M🜨) | 1 | 0.45 m/s | |
Earth | 0.09 | 0.30 m/s | |
Earth | 1 | 0.09 m/s | |
Source: Luca Pasquini, power-point presentation, 2009 [9] Notes: (1) Most precise vradial measurements ever recorded. ESO's HARPS spectrograph was used. [38] [39] |
Planet | Planet Type | Semimajor Axis (AU) | Orbital Period | Radial velocity (m/s) | Detectable by: |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
51 Pegasi b | Hot Jupiter | 0.05 | 4.23 days | 55.9 [40] | First-generation spectrograph |
55 Cancri d | Gas giant | 5.77 | 14.29 years | 45.2 [41] | First-generation spectrograph |
Jupiter | Gas giant | 5.20 | 11.86 years | 12.4 [42] | First-generation spectrograph |
Gliese 581c | Super-Earth | 0.07 | 12.92 days | 3.18 [43] | Second-generation spectrograph |
Saturn | Gas giant | 9.58 | 29.46 years | 2.75 | Second-generation spectrograph |
Proxima Centauri b | Habitable planet (potentially) | 0.05 | 11.19 days | 1.38 [44] | Second-generation spectrograph |
Neptune | Ice giant | 30.10 | 164.79 years | 0.281 | Third-generation spectrograph |
Earth | Habitable planet | 1.00 | 365.26 days | 0.089 | Third-generation spectrograph (likely) |
Pluto | Dwarf planet | 39.26 | 246.04 years | 0.00003 | Not detectable |
Stellar mass (M☉) | Planetary mass (ME) | Lum. (L0) | Type | RHAB (AU) | RV (cm/s) | Period (days) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.10 | 1.0 | 8×10−4 | M8 | 0.028 | 168 | 6 |
0.21 | 1.0 | 7.9×10−3 | M5 | 0.089 | 65 | 21 |
0.47 | 1.0 | 6.3×10−2 | M0 | 0.25 | 26 | 67 |
0.65 | 1.0 | 1.6×10−1 | K5 | 0.40 | 18 | 115 |
0.78 | 2.0 | 4.0×10−1 | K0 | 0.63 | 25 | 209 |
Source: [45] [46] |
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is an astronomical facility operated since 1998 by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with a primary mirror that measures 8.2 meters in diameter. These optical telescopes, named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun, are generally used separately but can be combined to achieve a very high angular resolution. The VLT array is also complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) with 1.8-meter apertures.
The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based astronomy. Created in 1962, ESO has provided astronomers with state-of-the-art research facilities and access to the southern sky. The organisation employs over 750 staff members and receives annual member state contributions of approximately €162 million. Its observatories are located in northern Chile.
The ESO 3.6 m Telescope is an optical reflecting telescope run by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla Observatory, Chile since 1977, with a clear aperture of about 3.6 metres (140 in) and 8.6 m2 (93 sq ft) area.
The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. HARPS has discovered over 130 exoplanets to date, with the first one in 2004, making it the most successful planet finder behind the Kepler space observatory. It is a second-generation radial-velocity spectrograph, based on experience with the ELODIE and CORALIE instruments.
Stéphane Udry is an astronomer at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, whose current work is primarily the search for extra-solar planets. He and his team, in 2007, discovered a possibly terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of the Gliese 581 planetary system, approximately 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. He also led the observational team that discovered HD 85512 b, another most promisingly habitable exoplanet.
Doppler spectroscopy is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in the spectrum of the planet's parent star. As of November 2022, about 19.5% of known extrasolar planets have been discovered using Doppler spectroscopy.
The Anglo Australian Planet Search or (AAPS) is a long-term astronomical survey started in 1998 and continuing to the present. It is being carried out on the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia. The purpose of this survey is to catalog planets around more than 240 nearby stars of the southern hemisphere. For its observations, the AAT uses the University College London Echelle Spectrograph, UCLES, an echelle spectrograph from the University College London located at the telescope's coudé focus. This survey uses the radial velocity method to search for extrasolar planets.
Gliese 682 or GJ 682 is a red dwarf. It is listed as the 53rd-nearest known star system to the Sun, being 16.3 light years away from the Earth. Even though it is close by, it is dim with a magnitude of 10.95 and thus requires a telescope to be seen. It is located in the constellation of Scorpius, near the bright star Theta Scorpii. The star is in a crowded region of sky near the Galactic Center, and so appears to be near a number of deep-sky objects from the Solar System's perspective. The star is only 0.5 degrees from the much more distant globular cluster NGC 6388.
Leonhard Euler Telescope, or the Swiss EULER Telescope, is a national, fully automatic 1.2-metre (47 in) reflecting telescope, built and operated by the Geneva Observatory. It is located at an altitude of 2,375 m (7,792 ft) at ESO's La Silla Observatory site in the Chilean Norte Chico region, about 460 kilometers north of Santiago de Chile. The telescope, which saw its first light on 12 April 1998, is named after Swiss mathematician Leonhard Paul Euler.
The SOPHIEéchelle spectrograph is a high-resolution echelle spectrograph installed on the 1.93m reflector telescope at the Haute-Provence Observatory located in south-eastern France. The purpose of this instrument is asteroseismology and extrasolar planet detection by the radial velocity method. It builds upon and replaces the older ELODIE spectrograph. This instrument was made available for use by the general astronomical community October 2006.
The Fiber-Optic Improved Next-Generation Doppler Search for Exo-Earths is a radial-velocity spectrograph developed by Debra Fischer. It is installed on the 3 meter telescope in Lick Observatory in Mount Hamilton. It has been in operation since 2009 and is being used to verify exoplanet candidates found by Kepler.
HARPS-N, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher for the Northern hemisphere is a high-precision radial-velocity spectrograph, installed at the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, a 3.58-metre telescope located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.
The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a ground-based robotic search for exoplanets. The facility is located at Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, about 2 km from ESO's Very Large Telescope and 0.5 km from the VISTA Survey Telescope. Science operations began in early 2015. The astronomical survey is managed by a consortium of seven European universities and other academic institutions from Chile, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Prototypes of the array were tested in 2009 and 2010 on La Palma, and from 2012 to 2014 at Geneva Observatory.
Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (VLT-SPHERE) is an adaptive optics system and coronagraphic facility at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). It provides direct imaging as well as spectroscopic and polarimetric characterization of exoplanet systems. The instrument operates in the visible and near infrared, achieving exquisite image quality and contrast over a small field of view around bright targets.
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy located at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. The project's principal investigator is the American astronomer Jason Eastman. The telescopes were manufactured by PlaneWave Instruments.
The EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph (EXPRES) is an optical fiber fed echelle instrument designed and built at the Yale Exoplanet Laboratory to be installed on the 4.3-meter Lowell Discovery Telescope operated by Lowell Observatory. It has a goal to achieve 10 cm/s radial velocity precision. It uses a laser frequency comb to calibrate the primary wavelength for EXPRES.
GJ 9827 is a star in the constellation of Pisces. It is a K-type main-sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 10.250. It is 97 light-years away, based on parallax.
MINERVA-Australis is a dedicated exoplanet observatory, operated by the University of Southern Queensland, in Queensland, Australia. The facility is located at USQ's Mount Kent Observatory, and saw first light in quarter two 2018. Commissioning of the facility was completed in mid-2019, and the facility was officially launched on 23 July 2019.
HD 29399 is a binary star in the constellation Reticulum. With an apparent visual magnitude of 5.78, it is visible to the naked eye under good viewing conditions. From its parallax measured by the Gaia, it is located at a distance of 144 light-years (44 parsecs) from Earth.
The first observation was for the star Tau Ceti. It was done using the UT1 of the VLT, the observations made on the four united telescopes will be done later.
... first light of ESPRESSO with the four VLT 8.2-meter Unit Telescopes (4UT mode) took place on Saturday February 3rd, 2018... star observed by ESPRESSO with the 4UT mode was the so-called Pepe star
ESPRESSO has been opened to the astronomical community and finally started operations on the 24th of October 2018.
An issue with the ESPRESSO CCD controllers has recently been identified.
A Laser Frequency Comb (LFC) is also available and should have replaced both the ThAr lamp and the Fabry-Pérot (Pasquini& Hubin 2018; Frank et al. 2018; Huke et al. 2018), but, due to lack of reliability and limited spectral coverage, it is currently not integrated in the operational scheme ... This situation might compromize the ability of ESPRESSO of guaranteeing RV repeatability at the 10 cm s−1 level over years.