New Cryogenic Camera to capture planets outside a solar system

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A powerful luggage-sized camera system has been developed to allow astronauts to take different high-resolution images of exoplanets – planets erupting stars outside our solar system. These planets are very large, larger than Jupiter – the largest planet in our solar system.

NIX has so-called infrared and cryogenic capabilities, such as the camera system, which allows it to capture the most complex images of these planets to date.

NIX was built at the The UK Astronomical Technology Center (UK Resources) at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (SCFC) in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is now abruptly adopted by the Max Planck Institute for External Physics (MPE) in Germany, where the various components of the Enhanced Solution Image and Spectrograph (ERIS) are being assembled. NIX is the “I” imager in ERIS.

NIX operates at extremely cold temperatures around -328 degrees Fahrenheit (-200 degrees Celsius), to attenuate thermal radiation. In addition, to exclude the glare from nearby stars of the exoplanets, the camera system contains various elements and mirrors, including baffles and an anti-reflective cover, which allows it to take pictures of the exoplanets. those young planets.

The most amazing thing about this new camera system is that all of its parts are designed and arranged in almost a small state – so that they fit into a surprisingly small space around it. size of hand luggage. This allows NIX to be ultra-precise and ultra-stable at such low temperatures.

Once assembled, NIX will become part of one of the world’s most advanced optical telescopes: the Southern European Observatory’s Giant Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, and will be used as early as 2022.

From there, NIX will use their state-of-the-art technology to capture images of exoplanets.

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