A Polarised View of Exoplanets
Polarised View of Exoplanets: ESO Video:
European Southern Obesrvatory (ESO): The prime objective of the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument for the VLT is the discovery and study of new extra-solar giant planets orbiting nearby stars by direct imaging of their circumstellar environment.
The Institute for Astronomy ETH Zurich has realised the design concept of the ZIMPOL (Zurich Imaging Polarimeter) instrument which is part of SPHERE. ZIMPOL is a single-beam polarimeter that achieves very high polarimetric accuracy using fast polarization modulation and demodulating CCD detectors.