The Gemini Planet Imager, an Earth-based exoplanet explorer, has unveiled images from its first observation run, according to a company press release.
The first observation run targeted known planetary systems, like the Beta Pictoris system. GPI was able to obtain the first-ever spectrum of the planet Beta Pictoris b.
"This was one of the smoothest first-light runs Gemini has ever seen" said Stephen Goodsell, who runs the project for the observatory, according to the press release.
The instrument was put together at the Gemini Southern Telescope in Chile. The builders said that the telescope provides ten times better results than any previous telescopes used.
"Even these early first-light images are almost a factor of 10 better than the previous generation of instruments. In one minute, we were seeing planets that used to take us an hour to detect," said team leader Bruce Macintosh of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in a statement, according to a company press release.
The images were taken this past November after decade's worth of planning and engineering. The goal is to eventually add direct observations of exoplanets to the indirect observation "techniques" used by other devices like the Kepler Telescope, according to the press release.
GPI is able to detect heat radiation from young planets in wide orbits around a large number of stars, equivalent to the giant planets located in our own Solar System shortly after they form.
Every single planet spotted by GPI can be analyzed in detail.
"Most planets that we know about to date are only known because of indirect methods that tell us a planet is there, a bit about its orbit and mass, but not much else," said Macintosh. "With GPI we directly image planets around stars, it's a bit like being able to dissect the system and really dive into the planet's atmospheric makeup and characteristics."
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