SPHERE
E176895
SPHERE is a high-contrast imaging instrument on the Very Large Telescope designed primarily for directly observing and characterizing exoplanets and circumstellar disks.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| SPHERE canonical | 13 |
| SPHERE-IFS | 2 |
| SPHERE platform | 1 |
| SPHERE-ZIMPOL | 1 |
| SPHERE/IFS | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1567950 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: SPHERE Context triple: [Very Large Telescope, hasInstrument, SPHERE]
-
A.
Orbit
Orbit is a publishing imprint best known for releasing science fiction and fantasy books.
-
B.
Orbit
Orbit is the fuzzy green alien mascot of the Houston Astros, known for his playful antics and fan-friendly entertainment at the team’s baseball games.
-
C.
Cone
Cone is a surname most notably associated with David Cone, a former Major League Baseball pitcher and five-time World Series champion.
-
D.
Sunsphere
The Sunsphere is a 266-foot-tall, gold-glass observation tower built as the symbol of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee.
-
E.
Ball
Ball is a common English surname borne by numerous individuals, including the famed American comedian and actress Lucille Ball.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: SPHERE Target entity description: SPHERE is a high-contrast imaging instrument on the Very Large Telescope designed primarily for directly observing and characterizing exoplanets and circumstellar disks.
-
A.
Orbit
Orbit is a publishing imprint best known for releasing science fiction and fantasy books.
-
B.
Orbit
Orbit is the fuzzy green alien mascot of the Houston Astros, known for his playful antics and fan-friendly entertainment at the team’s baseball games.
-
C.
Cone
Cone is a surname most notably associated with David Cone, a former Major League Baseball pitcher and five-time World Series champion.
-
D.
Sunsphere
The Sunsphere is a 266-foot-tall, gold-glass observation tower built as the symbol of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee.
-
E.
Ball
Ball is a common English surname borne by numerous individuals, including the famed American comedian and actress Lucille Ball.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
astronomical instrument
ⓘ
exoplanet imaging instrument ⓘ high-contrast imaging instrument ⓘ |
| achievesContrast | up to about 10^-6 at small angular separations ⓘ |
| acronymFor | Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch ⓘ |
| commissionedOn | 2014 ⓘ |
| designedFor | high-contrast imaging close to bright stars ⓘ |
| fieldOfView | small field optimized for nearby stars ⓘ |
| firstLight | 2014 ⓘ |
| fullName | Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch ⓘ |
| fundedBy | European Southern Observatory member states ⓘ |
| hasSubsystem |
IFS
ⓘ
IRDIS ⓘ SAXO ⓘ ZIMPOL ⓘ |
| installedOn |
VLT UT3 Nasmyth platform
ⓘ
linked to:
Very Large Telescope
|
| locatedAt | Paranal Observatory ⓘ |
| locatedIn |
Atacama Desert
ⓘ
Chile ⓘ |
| observesWavelengthRange |
near-infrared
ⓘ
visible ⓘ |
| operatedAt | Very Large Telescope ⓘ |
| operatedBy | European Southern Observatory ⓘ |
| partOf |
Very Large Telescope instrumentation suite
ⓘ
linked to:
Very Large Telescope
|
| primaryPurpose |
characterization of exoplanets
ⓘ
direct imaging of exoplanets ⓘ |
| scienceGoal |
detection of faint companions near bright stars
ⓘ
study of circumstellar dust disks ⓘ study of exoplanet atmospheres ⓘ study of planet formation ⓘ |
| secondaryPurpose | imaging of circumstellar disks ⓘ |
| subsystemFullName |
IFS – Integral Field Spectrograph
ⓘ
IRDIS – Infra-Red Dual-beam Imager and Spectrograph ⓘ SAXO – SPHERE AO for eXoplanet Observation ⓘ ZIMPOL – Zurich IMaging POLarimeter ⓘ |
| supportsMode |
imaging
ⓘ
low-resolution spectroscopy ⓘ polarimetry ⓘ |
| targetType |
nearby young stars
ⓘ
stars with debris disks ⓘ stars with protoplanetary disks ⓘ |
| telescopeUnit |
VLT Unit Telescope 3
ⓘ
linked to:
Very Large Telescope
|
| telescopeUnitName | Melipal ⓘ |
| usesTechnique |
coronagraphy
ⓘ
differential imaging ⓘ extreme adaptive optics ⓘ polarimetric imaging ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: SPHERE Description of subject: SPHERE is a high-contrast imaging instrument on the Very Large Telescope designed primarily for directly observing and characterizing exoplanets and circumstellar disks.
Referenced by (18)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: SPHERE
linked to: SPHERE
subject linked to:
IRDIS – Infra-Red Dual-beam Imager and Spectrograph
linked to: SPHERE
subject linked to:
IRDIS – Infra-Red Dual-beam Imager and Spectrograph
linked to: SPHERE
subject linked to:
IRDIS – Infra-Red Dual-beam Imager and Spectrograph
subject linked to:
ZIMPOL – Zurich IMaging POLarimeter
subject linked to:
ZIMPOL – Zurich IMaging POLarimeter