Speaker
Description
ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has a history of record-breaking discoveries in astrophysics and instrumentation. The next leap forward is its new visitor instrument: the Asgard instrumental suite. It comprises four natively collaborating instruments: HEIMDALLR, an instrument performing both fringe tracking and stellar interferometry with the same optics, simultaneously, in the K band; Baldr, a Strehl optimizer in the H band; BIFROST, a combiner to study the formation processes and properties of stellar and planetary systems in the Y-J-H bands; and NOTT, a nulling interferometer dedicated to imaging young nearby planetary systems in the L band. The suite is in its integration phase in Europe and should be shipped to Paranal in 2025 after approval from ESO. In this talk, we outline the key science cases of the Asgard instruments and the status of the project.
