ESO DOI Service

• Kasper, Markus [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Cerpa Urra, Nelly [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Pathak, Prashant [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Bonse, Markus [Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland]
• Nousiainen, Jalo [Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Finland]
• Engler, Byron [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Heritier, Cédric Taïssir [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Kammerer, Jens [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Leveratto, Serban [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Rajani, Chang [Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki, Finland]
• Bristow, Paul [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Le Louarn, Miska [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Madec, Pierre-Yves [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Ströbele, Stefan [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Verinaud, Christophe [European Southern Observatory (ESO)]
• Glauser, Adrian [Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland]
• Quanz, Sascha P. [Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland]
• Helin, Tapio [Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Finland]
• Keller, Christoph [Leiden University, the Netherlands]
• Snik, Frans [Leiden University, the Netherlands]
• Boccaletti, Anthony [LESIA, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, France]
• Chauvin, Gaël [Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, France]
• Mouillet, David [Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, France]
• Kulcsár, Caroline [Institut d’Optique, Université Paris-Saclay, France]
• Raynaud, Henri-François [Institut d’Optique, Université Paris-Saclay, France]

The Planetary Camera and Spectrograph (PCS) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be dedicated to detecting and characterising nearby exoplanets with sizes from sub-Neptune to Earth-size in the neighbourhood of the Sun. This goal is achieved by a combination of eXtreme Adaptive Optics (XAO), coronagraphy and spectroscopy. PCS will allow us not only to take images, but also to look for biosignatures such as molecular oxygen in the exoplanets’ atmospheres. This article describes the PCS primary science goals, the instrument concept and the research and development activities that will be carried out over the coming years.