What will the future bring? Scientific discoveries expected from the E-ELT Planets & Stars Stars & Galaxies Galaxies & Cosmology Eline Tolstoy Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen
E-ELT Instruments A beautiful complex telescope needs instruments to do science.
All E-ELT instruments need Adaptive Optics credit image: GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope). Adaptive Optics OFF Adaptive Optics ON
First Generation E-ELT Instruments: (approved) MICADO/MAORY optical/ir MCAO imager & slit spectrograph 0.8-2.4microns Primarily a workhorse imager - a focus on astrometry - watching stars move in different environments Germany, Netherlands, France, Austria, Italy, ESO HARMONI optical/ir IFU spectrograph Workhorse low/intermediate resolution small field spectrograph UK, France, Spain, ESO 0.47-2.45microns METIS mid-ir imager & spectrograph 3-19microns PI: Bernhard Brandl (Leiden/Delft) Unique instrument on an E-ELT - working at mid-infrared wavelengths - seeing through dust in a range of environments. Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Switzerland, UK, ESO
The power of the E-ELT The E-ELT will excel in collecting power and angular resolution Angular resolution scales with D (5x better for E-ELT versus VLT) 16x better than HST Exposure time scales with D 4 (500x faster for E-ELT versus VLT) 70000x faster than HST E-ELT 39m E-ELT MICADO Virgo Ellip9cal HST/ACS IZw18 18Mpc HST/2.4m HST 2.4m 0.75arcsec 0.75arcsec both images in I filter
Stars & Galaxies & Cosmology What we can do today in the very nearby Universe, can be extended to greater distances and higher densities with an E-ELT - this broadens our view of the physical properties of stars and galaxies in a much wider range of environments
Cosmic History Big Bang time present
Resolved Stellar Systems spatial resolution - sensitivity - photometric accuracy astrometry HST/2.4m Simulation of Omega Centauri (5 kpc) credit: NASA, ESA & J. Anderson (STScI)
Colour-Magnitude Diagram Analysis Tolstoy 2011 Science, 333, 176 direct observations of galaxies Low mass stars < 1M
Galaxies & Black Holes What we can do today in the very nearby Universe, can be extended to greater distances and higher densities with an E-ELT - this broadens our view of the physical properties of black holes in a much wider range of environments
Galactic Centre S0-2
Galactic Centre Credit: ESO/S. Gillessen/MPE/Marc Schartmann/L. Calçada Testing General Relativity in strong gravitational fields Gillessen et al. 2012 Nature
Planets & Stars It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to actually see Earth-like planets with existing telescopes, the spatial resolution and the flux sensitivity is too low. E-ELT will radically change this.
Exoplanets: Are we alone? How do planetary systems form? How common are systems like ours? What atmospheres do planets have? Are there other Earths? Can we detect signs of life?
Exoplanets: radial velocity ESO/3.6m HARPS Credit: ESO/H. Zodet Proxima Centauri 4 light years distance Credit: ESO/G. Anglada-Escudé
Exoplanets: transits from Bill Borucki's Jan 2010 AAS Presentation
direct observations of exo-planets Gemini Planet Imager
Confirmed exoplanets
transits
The habitable zone from Seager 2013 Science, 340, 577.
E-ELT/METIS: direct observations of exoplanets 2hrs integration The Kepler mission (using the transit method) has revealed that small planets with radii < 4 R Earth are abundant. These small, warm planets should emit enough thermal radiation for METIS to detect them. Brandl et al. 2016 SPIE proc.
Proxima b - artist s impression orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser