Annuncio

ESPRESSO vede la luce in fondo al tunnel

Primo passo importante verso l’aggiunta di un nuovo spettrografo ad alta risoluzione per il VLT

17 Ottobre 2016

Per la prima volta, la luce stellare proveniente da uno degli UT (Unit Telescopes) che formano il VLT (Very Large Telescope) è stata convogliata per 60 metri in un tunnel che conduce a un nuovo fuoco nel laboratorio sotterraneo sotto la piattaforma del VLT. Quando il sistema sarà pienamente operativo, la luce raccolta da tutti i quattro UT sarà convogliata verso questo “punto di convergenza”, dove, nel 2017, verrà posizionato ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations), lo spettrografo ad alta risoluzione che raccoglierà e analizzerà la luce combinata proveniente dai singoli telescopi. In questo modo, il potere di raccolta di luce degli UT, che hanno un diametro di 8 metri ciascuno, sarà equivalente a quello di telescopio avente un diametro di 16 metri. ESPRESSO potrà essere utilizzato anche con un solo UT ogni qualvolta non sia necessario utilizzare tutti e quattro.

Per convogliare la luce dal telescopio a un nuovo fuoco, il partner portoghese del consorzio che si occupa della costruzione di ESPRESSO ha progettato e installato un nuovo sistema ottico molto complesso. La qualità delle immagini raccolte nel “punto di convergenza” si è dimostrata eccellente e ha soddisfatto i requisiti più esigenti imposti per la realizzazione degli ambiziosi obiettivi scientifici dello strumento.

Si tratta di un primo passo davvero significativo e importante per lo sviluppo di ESPRESSO, uno strumento estremamente sofisticato, ed è un successo notevole per il team di ingegneri e astronomi che si occupano dello strumento. Questo primo risultato infonde molta fiducia nella futura performance di ESPRESSO. Nei prossimi mesi, gli altri tre UT verranno collegati al fuoco, dopodiché ESPRESSO verrà installato e inizieranno le vere e proprie osservazioni.

ESPRESSO è stato sviluppato da un consorzio nel corso degli ultimi sei anni. Questo spettrografo si basa sul successo di HARPS, uno strumento installato sul telescopio dell’ESO da 3,6 metri all’Osservatorio di La Silla, e porterà la spettroscopia ad alta risoluzione al VLT. La sensibilità di ESPRESSO sarà preziosa per la ricerca di pianeti rocciosi simili alla Terra in sistemi stellari lontani. Lo strumento sarà anche in grado di effettuare misurazioni precise di costanti fisiche fondamentali dell’Universo, di cui cercherà possibili variazioni nel tempo, e studierà in maniera approfondita la composizione chimica delle stelle in galassie lontane.

Ulteriori informazioni

Il consorzio per la costruzione di ESPRESSO è composto da: Università di Ginevra (Svizzera); Università di Berna (Svizzera); INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste (Italia); INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (Italia); Istituto di Astrofisica delle Canarie (Spagna); Università di Porto (Portogallo); Università di Lisbona (Portogallo); ESO.

Contatti

Peter Grimley 
ESO Assistant Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6383
Email: pgrimley@partner.eso.org

Gaspare Lo Curto
ESO
Vitacura, Chile
Email: glocurto@eso.org

Nuno Santos
Universidade do Porto
Porto, Portugal
Tel: +351 226 089 893
Email: Nuno.Santos@astro.up.pt

Francesco Pepe
Geneva Observatory
Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 37 92396
Email: Francesco.Pepe@unige.ch

Stefano Cristiani
INAF
Italy
Tel: +39-348-3004699
Email: cristiani@oats.inaf.it

Rafael Rebolo
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Spain
Tel: +34 922 60 5273
Email: rrl@iac.es

Riguardo all'annuncio

Identificazione:ann16073

Immagini

ESPRESSO milestone
ESPRESSO milestone
soltanto in inglese

Mandateci i vostri commenti!
Iscrivetevi per ricevere le notizie dell'ESO nella vostra lingua
Accelerated by CDN77
Termini & Condizioni
Cookie Settings and Policy

Our use of Cookies

We use cookies that are essential for accessing our websites and using our services. We also use cookies to analyse, measure and improve our websites’ performance, to enable content sharing via social media and to display media content hosted on third-party platforms.

You can manage your cookie preferences and find out more by visiting 'Cookie Settings and Policy'.

ESO Cookies Policy


The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) is the pre-eminent intergovernmental science and technology organisation in astronomy. It carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy.

This Cookies Policy is intended to provide clarity by outlining the cookies used on the ESO public websites, their functions, the options you have for controlling them, and the ways you can contact us for additional details.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device by websites you visit. They serve various purposes, such as remembering login credentials and preferences and enhance your browsing experience.

Categories of cookies we use

Essential cookies (always active): These cookies are strictly necessary for the proper functioning of our website. Without these cookies, the website cannot operate correctly, and certain services, such as logging in or accessing secure areas, may not be available; because they are essential for the website’s operation, they cannot be disabled.

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
csrftoken
XSRF protection token. We use this cookie to protect against cross-site request forgery attacks.
1st party
Stored
1 year
user_privacy
Your privacy choices. We use this cookie to save your privacy preferences.
1st party
Stored
6 months
_grecaptcha
We use reCAPTCHA to protect our forms against spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis. We use www.recaptcha.net instead of www.google.com in order to avoid unnecessary cookies from Google.
3rd party
Stored
6 months

Functional Cookies: These cookies enhance your browsing experience by enabling additional features and personalization, such as remembering your preferences and settings. While not strictly necessary for the website to function, they improve usability and convenience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent.

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
Settings
preferred_language
Language settings. We use this cookie to remember your preferred language settings.
1st party
Stored
1 year
ON | OFF
sessionid
ESO Shop. We use this cookie to store your session information on the ESO Shop. This is just an identifier which is used on the server in order to allow you to purchase items in our shop.
1st party
Stored
2 weeks
ON | OFF

Analytics cookies: These cookies collect information about how visitors interact with our website, such as which pages are visited most often and how users navigate the site. This data helps us improve website performance, optimize content, and enhance the user experience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent. We use the following analytics cookies.

Matomo Cookies:

This website uses Matomo (formerly Piwik), an open source software which enables the statistical analysis of website visits. Matomo uses cookies (text files) which are saved on your computer and which allow us to analyze how you use our website. The website user information generated by the cookies will only be saved on the servers of our IT Department. We use this information to analyze www.eso.org visits and to prepare reports on website activities. These data will not be disclosed to third parties.

On behalf of ESO, Matomo will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

ON | OFF

Matomo cookies settings:

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
Settings
_pk_id
Stores a unique visitor ID.
1st party
Stored
13 months
_pk_ses
Session cookie temporarily stores data for the visit.
1st party
Stored
30 minutes
_pk_ref
Stores attribution information (the referrer that brought the visitor to the website).
1st party
Stored
6 months
_pk_testcookie
Temporary cookie to check if a visitor’s browser supports cookies (set in Internet Explorer only).
1st party
Stored
Temporary cookie that expires almost immediately after being set.

Additional Third-party cookies on ESO websites: some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube.

Such third-party services are outside of ESO control and may, at any time, change their terms of service, use of cookies, etc.

YouTube: Some videos on the ESO website are embedded from ESO’s official YouTube channel. We have enabled YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, meaning that no cookies are set unless the user actively clicks on the video to play it. Additionally, in this mode, YouTube does not store any personally identifiable cookie data for embedded video playbacks. For more details, please refer to YouTube’s embedding videos information page.

Cookies can also be classified based on the following elements.

Regarding the domain, there are:

As for their duration, cookies can be:

How to manage cookies

Cookie settings: You can modify your cookie choices for the ESO webpages at any time by clicking on the link Cookie settings at the bottom of any page.

In your browser: If you wish to delete cookies or instruct your browser to delete or block cookies by default, please visit the help pages of your browser:

Please be aware that if you delete or decline cookies, certain functionalities of our website may be not be available and your browsing experience may be affected.

You can set most browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in, shop check out).

Updates to the ESO Cookies Policy

The ESO Cookies Policy may be subject to future updates, which will be made available on this page.

Additional information

For any queries related to cookies, please contact: pdprATesoDOTorg.

As ESO public webpages are managed by our Department of Communication, your questions will be dealt with the support of the said Department.