National Center for Scientific Research, France | 2017 Sep 28
The MATISSE instrument is ready to be sent to Chile, where in the next few weeks it will be installed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world's most powerful astronomical observatory. This achievement is the outcome of fifteen years of development, including a final year of testing at the Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange (Observatoire Côte d'Azur/CNRS/Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis). The instrument, for which France is responsible under the auspices of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is international in scope. By observing the protoplanetary disks that surround young stars, the MATISSE project should improve our understanding of the formation of the Earth and of planets in general. ...
With MATISSE, one of the major goals of researchers is to observe protoplanetary disks in order to understand the formation of our own planet and that of planets in general. To achieve this, the instrument will enable astronomers to observe the sky with unprecedented resolution in the mid-infrared region—at wavelengths of 3 to 13 micrometers—and to combine the light from four of the VLT's eight telescopes at Cerro Paranal, Chile, including the four large eight-meter telescopes. Using the instrument it will be possible to observe the dust and gas surrounding young stars that make up the basic building blocks from which planets form. The environments of stars younger than our own Sun, which have been difficult to observe until now, should shed light on the conditions under which different types of planets form: gas giants like Jupiter, and smaller rocky planets like Earth. ...