Posted on June 27, 2022 by Marie-Eve Naud
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The Near InfraRed Planet Searcher (NIRPS) instrument, developed in part at the University of Montreal and Laval University, has successfully made its first observations. Mounted on the 3.6 m ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, NIRPS ‘mission is to search for new exoplanets around the stars in the solar neighborhood.
This photograph shows the NIRPS instrument and its adaptive optics system, which is installed in the 3.6-meter ESO telescope. The light collected from the telescope is guided through a series of mirrors before being injected into an optical fiber. Thanks to this system of adaptive optics, disturbances in the Earth’s atmosphere can be corrected, allowing sharper observations. Credit: N. Blind (Geneva Observatory) / NIRPS consortium / ESO.
“NIRPS has been around for a long time and I’m thrilled with how this mission has come together!” says René Doyon, director of the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic and the Research Institute on Exoplanets at the University of Montreal and senior co-researcher at NIRPS. “This amazing infrared instrument will help us find the habitable worlds closest to our own Solar System.”
The instrument will focus its research on rocky worlds, which are key goals for understanding how planets form and evolve, and are the most likely planets where life can develop. NIRPS will search for these rocky exoplanets around small, cool red dwarf stars, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy, which have masses about two to ten times smaller than our Sun.
NIRPS will search for exoplanets using the radial velocity method. When a planet orbits a star, its gravitational pull causes the star to “chatter” slightly, causing its light to shift to red or blue as it moves away or toward Earth. By measuring the subtle changes in starlight, NIRPS will help astronomers measure the mass of the planet as well as other properties.
NIRPS will look for these spectral oscillations using near-infrared light, as this is the main range of wavelengths emitted by such small, cool stars. It joins the high-precision radial velocity planet finder (HARPS) in search of new rocky worlds. HARPS, which has been installed in the 3.6 m ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile since 2003, also uses the radial velocity method, but works with visible light. The use of both instruments simultaneously will provide a more complete analysis of these rocky worlds.
Another key difference between the two instruments is that NIRPS will be based on a powerful adaptive optics system. Adaptive optics is a technique that corrects the effects of atmospheric turbulence, which make stars shine. By using it, NIRPS will double its efficiency for both finding and studying exoplanets.
“NIRPS joins a very small number of high-performance near-infrared spectrographs and is expected to be a key player for observations in synergy with space missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Earth Observatories,” adds François Bouchy, of the University. of Geneva, Switzerland, and lead co-researcher at NIRPS.
The discoveries made with NIRPS and HARPS will be followed by some of the most powerful observatories in the world, such as the ESO Very Large Telescope and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope in Chile (for which similar instruments are being developed). By working in conjunction with space and terrestrial observatories, NIRPS will be able to gather clues about the composition of an exoplanet and even look for signs of life in its atmosphere.
In order to operate in the infrared, the Near Infrared Planet Searcher (NIRPS) instrument must be kept very cool to prevent heat from interfering with observations. Here we see the cylindrical cryogenic chamber within which the optical parts of the instrument are installed. The cryogenic chamber keeps the components in a vacuum environment and cools to a freezing temperature of -190 degrees Celsius. Credit: F. Bouchy (Geneva Observatory) / NIRPS consortium / ESO.
NIRPS was built by an international collaboration led by the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic and the team of the Research Institute on Exoplanets at the University of Montreal in Canada and the Observatoire Astronomique at the University of Montreal. Geneva in Switzerland. Much of the assembly and mechanical and optical testing of the instrument was carried out in recent years in the laboratories of the Center for Optics, Photonics and Laser (COPL) of Laval University by Professor Simon Thibault and his team. The Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Center of the National Research Council of Canada contributed to the design and construction of the spectrograph.
“After two years of integrating and testing the instrument in the lab, it’s amazing for the optical engineering team to see NIRPS in the sky.” mentions Professor Simon Thibault, affiliated with COPL and iREx and who gave an overview of optical integration and test phases at Laval University.
Here we see the first raw data of the NIRPS instrument, the spectrum of the Barnard star. Each horizontal line corresponds to a narrow region of light where both the absorption lines of the star and the absorption of the Earth’s atmosphere are visible. Dotted lines correspond to the so-called comb spectrum, a “rule” that is used as a reference for horizontal lines, so scientists can know what wavelengths of light they correspond to. Credit: ESO / NIRPS consortium.
Many Canadian members of the NIRPS have been working at the La Silla site during the commissioning period of the instrument and will continue to do so in the coming months to ensure the scientific operations of the NIRPS. The NIRPS scientific team, which includes several Canadian astronomers, has 720 nights guaranteed on the instrument during its first 5 years of operation due to its significant contribution to the project. While the whole team was thrilled by the first light of NIRPS, it can be said that the best is yet to come!
More information
The institutes involved in the NIRPS consortium are the University of Montreal, Canada; the University of Geneva, Astronomy Observatory, Switzerland; the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Porto, Portugal; the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, Spain; the University of Grenoble, France; and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
The Canadian NIRPS team, led by the University of Montreal / Exoplanet Research Institute / Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic and including Laval University, the Herzberg Center for Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Research Council of Canada and the Royal Military College, received funding. by the Canadian Innovation Fund to build the NIRPS instrument.
Contacts
René DoyonProfessor, Senior Co-Researcher at NIRPSExplanet Research Institute and Mont-Mégantic Observatory – University of MontrealTel: +1 514 343 6111 x3204Email: rene.doyon@umontreal.ca
Frédérique BaronDirector of the NIRPS Project Mont-Mégantic Observatory – University of MontrealMontrealTel .: +1 514 277 2858Email: frederique.baron@umontreal.ca
Simon ThibaultProfessor, NIRPS Optical Engineering TeamCenter of Optics, Photonics and Lasers – Université LavalQuébecTel: +1 418 656 2131 x 412766Email: simon.thibault@phy.ulaval.ca
Anne-Sophie Poulin-Girard Research Associate, NIRPS Optical Engineering TeamOptics, Photonics and Laser Center – Université LavalQuébecTel: +1 418 656 2131 x 404646Email: anne-sophie.poulin-girard@copl.ulaval.ca
Nathalie OuelletteCoordinatorInstitute for Research on Exoplanets – University of MontrealTel: +1 613 531 1762Email: nathalie.ouellette.2@umontreal.ca
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