Astronomers use new optics technology to detect exoplanets
OCT 19, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024756
Daily Mail : An international team of astronomers has captured images of a planet in much closer orbit around its parent star than any other extrasolar planet previously found. The team used new optics technology, called an apodizing phase plate, which is a small piece of glass with a complex pattern etched into its surface. It blocks out the starlight and makes visible planets whose signals were previously drowned out by the star’s glare. “Until now, we only were able to look at the outer planets in a solar system, in the range of Neptune’s orbit and beyond. Now we can see planets on orbits much closer to their parent star,” says Philip Hinz, director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics at Steward Observatory. The team’s results were published in Astrophysical Journal Letters .
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
