PSION
PSION (Planetary Systems In Our Neighborhood) aims at searching for planets around some of the nearest stars to the Sun.
Finding or constraining the architecture of nearby planetary systems is not only interesting in itself (who does not want to know their neighbors?), but it is also a crucial stepping stone for new and upcoming facilities (such, e.g., external page JWST and ELT/METIS) and potential future missions (such as, e.g., LIFE ) to help identify and prioritize key targets.
PSION has already been allocated over 15 observing hours with external page VLT/SPHERE and 160 observing hours with external page VLT/ESPRESSO . Part of the VLT/ESPRESSO data led to the discovery of a Super Earth orbiting the nearby M dwarf star L 363-38 (Sartori et al. 2023, see this news item ).
PSION is partly carried out in a joint collaboration with the University of Geneva through the external page NCCR PlanetS , but also includes participation in additional projects (e.g., the external page NEAR campaign).
Recent PSION publications:
Sartori et al. 2023 external page A planet newly discovered with ESPRESSO orbiting a nearby M dwarf star
Boehle et al. 2019 external page Combining high-contrast imaging and radial velocities to constrain the planetary architectures of nearby stars
