![planet centauri upgrade planet centauri upgrade](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N3Qrw8l13rk/hqdefault.jpg)
It’s a way of blocking out the majority of light from a star, to better see the light of an orbiting planet. VISIR will get a new sensor and will be updated so that it can employ a technique known as coronagraphy. That’s why the telescope’s VISIR instrument will need a few additional updates to be sensitive enough to pick up planets around the two remaining Sun-like stars in the system - Alpha Centauri A and B. However, stars are still super bright in mid-infrared. But observing these objects in mid-infrared can help to reduce the huge “gap” in brightness between a planet and its host star, according to ESO.
![planet centauri upgrade planet centauri upgrade](https://img.youtube.com/vi/is3DeKxPYDA/0.jpg)
Looking for planets in the visible light spectrum can be tough, since the intense light from a star can overpower the faint light of any nearby planets. It’s an imaging tool that observes celestial objects in the mid-infrared, a type of light that can’t be seen but is associated with the emission of heat. The VLT’s upgrade, which will take a couple years to complete, will focus on a tune-up of the telescope’s VISIR instrument. Liquid water is a critical ingredient for life here on Earth, so its presence on another planet may fuel life there as well. That’s the region around a star often referred to as the “Goldilocks zone,” since temperatures are just right for water to exist as a liquid on a planet’s surface. The discovery of the planet, named Proxima b, was extra enticing, since the world likely orbits in Proxima Centauri’s habitable zone. Last year, a rocky, Earth-sized planet was discovered orbiting around Proxima Centuari - the smallest star within the system and the closest one to Earth. And right now, astronomers know of only one planet at Alpha Centauri. Unsurprisingly, Breakthrough Initiatives is very interested in finding planets within the Alpha Centauri system, since such worlds would make great targets for Breakthrough Starshot to analyze. Theoretically, photons from a powerful enough laser could propel the small vehicle up to one-fifth the speed of light, allowing the spacecraft to reach Alpha Centauri in just 20-plus years. The project, called Breakthrough Starshot, wants to transport a tiny vehicle to Alpha Centauri using a giant laser from Earth. Breakthrough Initiatives has a special interest in Alpha Centauri, as the organization has high hopes of sending a spacecraft there within a generation. To help fund the upgrade, ESO has partnered with Breakthrough Initiatives, a program established in 2015 by Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner to search for life throughout the Universe. If such worlds exist, ESO believes that VLT will be able to directly image them