Related papers: SPHERE+: Imaging young Jupiters down to the snowli…

The SPHERE project studies primary cosmic rays by detection of the Cherenkov light of extensive air showers reflected from the snowy surface of the earth. Measurements with the aerial-based detector SPHERE-2 were performed in 2011-2013. The…

Imaging exoplanetary systems is essential to characterizing exoplanetary systems and to studying planet-disk interactions to understand planet formation. Such imaging in the visible and near-infrared is challenging because these objects are…

Dusty debris disks around pre- and main-sequence stars are potential signposts for the existence of planetesimals and exoplanets. Giant planet formation is therefore expected to play a key role in the evolution of the disk. This is…

Atmospheric characterisation of exoplanets from the ground is an actively growing field of research. In this context we have created the ATMOSPHERIX consortium: a research project aimed at characterizing exoplanets atmospheres using…

We image with unprecedented spatial resolution and sensitivity disk features that could be potential signs of planet-disk interaction. Two companion candidates have been claimed in the disk around the young Herbig Ae/Be star HD100546. Thus,…

Next year the second generation instrument SPHERE will begin science operations at the Very Large Telecope (ESO). This instrument will be dedicated to the search for exoplanets through the direct imaging techniques, with the new generation…

We present recent results obtained with the VLT/MUSE Integral Field Spectrograph fed by the 4LGSF and its laser tomography adaptive optics module GALACSI. While this so-called narrow-field mode of MUSE was not designed to perform directly…

The quest to discover exoplanets is one of the most important missions in astrophysics, and is widely performed using the transit method, which allows for the detection of exoplanets down to the size of Mercury. However, to confirm these…

We present 0.95-1.80 $\mu$m spectroscopy of the $\sim$12-27 $M_{\rm Jup}$ companion orbiting the faint ($R$$\sim$13.6), young ($\sim$120 Myr) M-dwarf 2MASS J01225093--2439505 ("2M0122--2439 B") at 1.5 arcsecond separation (50 AU). Our…

The Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), thanks to their large apertures and cutting-edge Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) systems, promise to deliver sharper and deeper data even than the JWST. SHARP is a concept study for a near-IR…

Context. High-contrast imaging is currently the only available technique for the study of the thermodynamical and compositional properties of exoplanets in long-period orbits. The SPICES project is a coronagraphic space telescope dedicated…

We present a new open-source data-reduction pipeline to reconstruct spectral data cubes from raw SPHERE integral-field spectrograph (IFS) data. The pipeline is written in Python and based on the pipeline that was developed for the CHARIS…

RefPlanets is a guaranteed time observation (GTO) programme that uses the Zurich IMaging POLarimeter (ZIMPOL) of SPHERE/VLT for a blind search for exoplanets in wavelengths from 600-900 nm. The goals of this study are the characterization…

Massive stars like company. However, low-mass companions have remained extremely difficult to detect at angular separations ($\rho$) smaller than 1" (~1000-3000 au considering typical distance to nearby massive stars) given the large…

The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer operating at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. In this paper, we present the concept, design, and pre-launch performance of…

The second-generation instrument SPHERE, dedicated to high-contrast imaging, will soon be in operation on the European Very Large Telescope. Such an instrument relies on an extreme adaptive optics system coupled with a coronagraph that…

In the last years, the Observatory of Padova (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova) and the University of Padova have been involved massively in projects dedicated to the exoplanets search, both ground, and…

We review the importance of recent UV observations of solar system targets and discuss the need for further measurements, instrumentation and laboratory work in the coming decade. In the past decade, numerous important advances have been…

Time-series transit photometry from the Kepler space telescope has allowed for the discovery of thousands of exoplanets. We explore the potential of yet improved future missions such as PLATO 2.0 in detecting solar system analogues. We use…

The SPHERE-3 setup is destined to register the EAS Cherenkov light, both the direct and the reflected from the snow surface. A set of methods and new approaches in the measurement technique enable substantial progress in the study of the…