Faculty of Science (FNWI) - Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy (API)
Abstract
With the Spectro-Polarimetric High- contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE)
instrument at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) we can study the linear
polarisation of directly detected planets and brown dwarfs, to learn
about their atmospheres and immediate environments. We summarise here
the recent discovery of a low-mass companion in polarised light by
Ginski et al. (2018). The object shows an extreme degree of
polarisation, indicating the presence of a circumplanetary disc.