CHEOPS: a second generation VLT instrument for the direct detection of exo-planets
Abstract
The second generation VLT instrument CHEOPS will be a high-contrast, adaptive optics based system for the direct detection of both cold (mature), and warm (young) exo-planets. The instrument will exploit two diffent arms at once, both fed by light split by a dichroic mirror. The spectroscopic arm is a very low resolution NIR integral field spectrograph (IFS) operating in the JH bands. The second arm is a polarimetric I band imager using the ZIMPOL technique (Schmid et al. 2002). CHEOPS will be optimized to detect photons emitted from the surface of extrasolar planets by reflection and/or thermal emission. Additional science topics which will be addressed by CHEOPS include the study of brown dwarfs, of circumstellar disks and related phenomena such as mass loss mechanisms, of stellar winds, of planetary nebulae and presumably even of supernova explosions.
- Publication:
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Stellar Structure and Habitable Planet Finding
- Pub Date:
- January 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004ESASP.538..301C
- Keywords:
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- Planets: Exoplanets;
- Techniques: IFS