European Southern Observatory (ESO) completes first observations with PoET telescope

Key facts

• The European Southern Observatory (ESO) successfully completed the first observations using the Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET) located on the Paranal Plateau in Chile.
• The PoET instrument is designed to help astronomers distinguish signals from exoplanets by filtering out astrophysical noise caused by stellar activity such as sunspots, flares, and convective movements.
• Equipped with a 60-centimetre-diameter mirror, the telescope simultaneously studies specific regions of the solar disk and records the total light from the entire visible disk of the Sun.
• Data from the telescope is processed by the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), allowing the instrument to be utilised during the day while it searches for distant stars at night.
• Developed by Portuguese researchers with funding from the European Research Council (ERC), the system is undergoing final calibration before regular scientific data collection begins.