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ESO 27/08 - Associated Images

8 September 2008
For Immediate Release

MIND THE GAP

VLT instrument hints at the presence of planets in young gas discs

Astronomers have been able to study planet-forming discs around young Sun-like stars in unsurpassed detail, using ESO's Very Large Telescope. The studied discs were known to have gaps in the dusty discs (represented by the brownish color in the image) but the astronomers found that gas is still present inside these gaps (represented by the white color in the image). This can either mean that the dust has clumped together to form planetary embryos, or that a planet has already formed and is in the process of clearing the gas in the disc.

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The CRIRES Instrument, located on the Nasmyth-platform of VLT Unit Telescope 1, Antu. CRIRES is the cryogenic high-resolution infrared echelle spectrograph, which provides a resolving power of up to 100 000 in the spectral range from 1 to 5 microns. CRIRES can boost all scientific applications aiming at fainter objects, higher spatial (extended sources), spectral and temporal resolution. CRIRES also allows astronomers to make use of the innovative 'spectral imaging' method.

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