A polarised view of Exoplanets

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.© ESO

ESO has made a great movie about the new SPHERE instrument for the VLT, and specifically the working principle of the polarimetric planetfinder ZIMPOL. http://www.eso.org/public/videos/esocast60a/

SPHERE is the "Planet Finder" instrument for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. It is presently in its Preliminary Acceptance Europe (PAE) phase.

SPHERE-ZIMPOL is a high-precision imaging polarimeter, working in the visual range. It is one of the three focal instruments of SPHERE, and is developed by a consortium of ASTRON/NOVA, University of Amsterdam, ETH Zurich and University Utrecht.

The shipment of SPHERE to Chile will take place in December 2013, followed by commissioning in 2014. For more detailed information, see http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/develop/instruments/sphere/