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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

ESPRESSO - Phase A

25122/ESO/08/20598/JSC

Principal investigator
Francesco Pepe (Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève, Switzerland)

Researcher in charge at CAUP
Nuno C. Santos

This spectrograph is under preparation by a consortium of 4 partners, in close collaboration with ESO. It is currently planned for the VLT, and it will work as proof-of-concept for CODEX (planned for the E-ELT). The Portuguese participation, coordinated by CAUP, includes other Portuguese units (SIM, INETI) and individual collaborations.

ESPRESSO will allow to do fronteer research in some key astrophysical domains, including the detection of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, and the study of the variability of the fundamental constants of Nature.

Funding institution
European Southern Observatory

Start: 1 January 2009
End: 31 March 2010


European Southern Observatory

Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences

Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) is a new but long anticipated research infrastructure with a national dimension. It embodies a bold but feasible vision for the development of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal, taking full advantage and fully realizing the potential created by the national membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). IA resulted from the merging the two most prominent research units in the field in Portugal: the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) and the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics of the University of Lisbon (CAAUL). It currently hosts more than two-thirds of all active researchers working in Space Sciences in Portugal, and is responsible for an even greater fraction of the national productivity in international ISI journals in the area of Space Sciences. This is the scientific area with the highest relative impact factor (1.65 times above the international average) and the field with the highest average number of citations per article for Portugal.

Proceed on CAUP's website|Go to IA website