Skip to main content

The new ESPRESSO four-in-one telescope is a next-generation planet hunter

ESOcast 152 Light: ESO’s VLT Working as 16-metre Telescope for First Time (4K UHD)

The universe just got a little smaller, thanks to a new project from the European Southern Observatory in Chile. One of the primary goals of the project was to integrate the operation of its four Unit Telescopes together to create a Very Large Telescope (VLT), an optical telescope with the largest collecting area in the world.

Thanks to an instrument named ESPRESSO, that goal has now been achieved. ESPRESSO stands for Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, meaning it will be used to hunt for planets in orbit around distant stars

By exploiting the light-gathering capabilities of the individual VLTs, it has the light-gathering capacity of a 52-foot (16-meter) optical telescope. “ESO has realized a dream that dates back to the time when the VLT was conceived in the 1980s: bringing the light from all four Unit Telescopes on Cerro Paranal together at an incoherent focus to feed a single instrument!” Gaspare Lo Curto of ESO said in a statement.

In addition to searching for Earth-like planets, ESPRESSO will also examine the very nature of physics by observing the light emitted by far-off quasars. Using a system of prisms, mirrors, and lenses, the light from each individual telescope is transmitted to ESPRESSO as far as 226 feet (69 meters) away.

Thanks to the stability of the telescopes and the construction of the facility, ESPRESSO can combine the observations from all four telescopes together, or use the light received from a single telescope, allowing for maximum flexibility during a single observation. Check out the images at the ESO website for some truly breathtaking photos from the observatory.

“This impressive milestone is the culmination of work by a large team of scientists and engineers over many years,” said scientist Paolo Molaro. “It is wonderful to see ESPRESSO working with all four Unit Telescopes and I look forward to the exciting science results to come.”

The ESO calls their facility at Gaspara Lo Curto a “game changer” for astronomy. It uses high-resolution spectrographs and wavelength calibration to enable observations that were never possible before.

“Go big or go home” seems to be the motto for these astronomers, and ESO isn’t done yet, according to Director General Xavier Barcons. “ESPRESSO working with all four Unit Telescopes gives us an enticing foretaste of what the next generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, will offer in a few years,” he said.

Editors' Recommendations

Mark Austin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mark’s first encounter with high-tech was a TRS-80. He spent 20 years working for Nintendo and Xbox as a writer and…
A Star Trek fan deepfaked Next Generation-era Data into the new Picard series
Data Picard

Star Trek Picard: Fixing Data's Face with Deepfake

Brent Spiner reprised his role as Lt. Cmdr. Data for the 2020 CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard, and while it was certainly a nice touch to see Spiner play the iconic synthetic life form for the first time in years, there was no getting around the fact that the character didn’t look entirely like the Mr. Data fans remember from his Star Trek: The Next Generation heyday.

Read more
The Very Large Telescope spots a spooky skull nebula
Captured in astounding detail by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the eerie Skull Nebula is showcased in this new image in beautiful pink and red tones. This planetary nebula, also known as NGC 246, is the first known to be associated with a pair of closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star.

Just in time for Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released an image of a spooky structure known as the Skull Nebula. This nebula, situated deep in the belly of The Whale constellation (Cetus), is located around 1,600 light-years from Earth. But the nebula is not only thematically appropriate for this weekend, but it is also notable for its unusual configuration of two closely bound stars being orbited by a third more distant star.

Captured in astounding detail by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the eerie Skull Nebula is showcased in this new image in beautiful pink and red tones. This planetary nebula, also known as NGC 246, is the first known to be associated with a pair of closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star. ESO

Read more
The Very Large Telescope captures a striking cosmic butterfly nebula
NGC 2899 planetary nebula

A beautiful image of an unusual planetary nebula has been captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The object, technically known as NGC 2899, is located between 3,000 and 6,500 light-years away in the constellation of Vela (the Sails) and has been imaged in detail for the first time, showing off its rare butterfly shape.

This highly detailed image of the fantastic NGC 2899 planetary nebula was captured using the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in northern Chile. This object has never before been imaged in such striking detail, with even the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula glowing over the background stars. ESO

Read more