New AO Coronagraph Makes It Possible to See Planets Closer To Stars
Steward Observatory's MagAO team, and collaborators from Leiden University in the Netherlands, have just demonstrated a breakthrough in the quest to image extrasolar planets. Using a technique first proposed by Steward's John Codona, the new coronagraphs in MagAO's Clio infrared camera reach an extreme level of sensitivity to planets very close to their stars. These "Vector Apodizing Phase Plates" fold the light from a star out of the way, allowing the light from the more than 100,000 times fainter planet to shine through. You can read the UA Press Release HERE, and you can read it in Dutch HERE. The photo shows the team at Magellan: from left to right, Matt Kenworthy (a former Steward postdoc), Gilles Otten, and Stewardites Laird Close, Katie Morzinski, and Jared Males.
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