First scientific results with CARMENES

04/10/2017 
CARMENES, a visible and infrared spectrograph developed by a consortium of eleven German and Spanish institutions and involving up to eight researchers and engineers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), was designed to search for terrestrial-type planets in the habitability zone, the region around a star where the conditions allow the existence of liquid water. This instrument, installed in the 3.5-meters telescope of the Observatory of Calar Alto (Almeria), has studied a sample of 300 stars searching for planets similar to the Earth. The study, published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, analyzes seven known planetary systems and test the excellent performance of this spectrograph. >> Read more