Project support for the Wide Area Search for Planets
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of Mathematics and Physics
Abstract
Questions such as ``how many stars have planets around them?'' and ``how many habitable planets are there?'' interest both astronomers and everyone else. To answer them we need to find planets that can be studied in detail, seeking to understand the processes by which planets form and solar systems evolve. Of the two hundred planets that astronomers have found orbiting other stars we can learn most about those that transit in front of their star. We can measure how big they are, how heavy they are, and thus deduce their density and what they are made of. And by looking at how their atmosphere absorbs the light of their star we can discover the composition of their atmospheres. The WASP project aims to monitor 40 million of the brightest stars, looking for the tiny dips in their light caused by a planet passing in front of them. We will survey the sky for the transiting planets that are relatively close to Earth, which we can study in detail to enable us to understand how planetary systems form and evolve. The next generation of space missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble, will prioritize the study of planets around other stars. The WASP project will find the planets that will make the best and most interesting targets.
Organisations
Publications
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Madhusudhan N
(2011)
A high C/O ratio and weak thermal inversion in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-12b.
in Nature
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Faedi F
(2011)
New transiting exoplanets from the SuperWASP-North survey
in Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
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Norton A
(2011)
Short period eclipsing binary candidates identified using SuperWASP
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
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Smalley B
(2011)
WASP-34b: a near-grazing transiting sub-Jupiter-mass exoplanet in a hierarchical triple system
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
![publication icon](/resources/img/placeholder-60x60.png)
Watson C
(2011)
On the alignment of debris discs and their host stars' rotation axis - implications for spin-orbit misalignment in exoplanetary systems
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
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Simpson E
(2011)
WASP-37b: A 1.8 M J EXOPLANET TRANSITING A METAL-POOR STAR
in The Astronomical Journal
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Smalley B
(2011)
SuperWASP observations of pulsating Am stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
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Anderson D
(2011)
WASP-30b: A 61 M Jup BROWN DWARF TRANSITING A V = 12, F8 STAR
in The Astrophysical Journal
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Faedi F
(2011)
WASP-39b: a highly inflated Saturn-mass planet orbiting a late G-type star
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
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Anderson D
(2012)
WASP-44b, WASP-45b and WASP-46b: three short-period, transiting extrasolar planets WASP-44b, WASP-45b and WASP-46b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society