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20170013_0034

© Sébastien CHASTANET/OMP/IRAP/CNRS Images

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20170013_0034

Différentes optiques du spectrographe de l’instrument SPIRou

Various optics of the SPIRou (InfraRed SpectroPolarimeter) instrument’s spectrograph installed on a cryogenic bench, in the clean room. On the left is the dispersive system consisting of three prisms and an echelle network; the imposing objective is positioned on the right; the reflecting mirror and the pupil slicer are in the centre. SPIRou consists of a near-infrared spectropolarimeter combined with a high-precision velocimeter. Installed at the Cassegrain focus of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) at the end of 2017, SPIRou was designed to detect habitable Earth-twin exoplanets in the planetary systems of red dwarf stars in the vicinity of the Sun. It could also unravel the mysteries of the birth of stars and planets, by observing for the first time the magnetic fields of protostars aged just a few hundred thousand years.

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