Project support for the Wide Area Search for Planets
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
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.
Publications
Nisi RS
(2014)
An altitude and distance correction to the source fluence distribution of TGFs.
in Journal of geophysical research. Space physics
Mancini L
(2014)
Physical properties and transmission spectrum of the WASP-80 planetary system from multi-colour photometry
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Brothwell R
(2014)
A window on exoplanet dynamical histories: Rossiter-McLaughlin observations of WASP-13b and WASP-32b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Southworth J
(2014)
High-precision photometry by telescope defocussing - VI. WASP-24, WASP-25 and WASP-26?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Hong-Bo T
(2014)
Photometric Observation and Study of the Transiting Exoplanetary System HAT-P-8
in Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics
Blecic J
(2014)
SPITZER OBSERVATIONS OF THE THERMAL EMISSION FROM WASP-43b
in The Astrophysical Journal
Wild V
(2014)
The Mice at play in the CALIFA survey A case study of a gas-rich major merger between first passage and coalescence
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Barber J
(2014)
Stirring N-body systems - II. Necessary conditions for the dark matter attractor
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bonomo A
(2014)
Characterization of the planetary system Kepler-101 with HARPS-N A hot super-Neptune with an Earth-sized low-mass companion
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Lendl M
(2014)
WASP-117b: a 10-day-period Saturn in an eccentric and misaligned orbit
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Xiang Y
(2014)
Distribution and evolution of starspots on the RS CVn binary II Pegasi in 2004
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Smalley B
(2014)
Eclipsing Am binary systems in the SuperWASP survey
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Haywood R
(2014)
Planets and stellar activity: hide and seek in the CoRoT-7 system?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Donati J
(2014)
Modelling the magnetic activity and filtering radial velocity curves of young Suns : the weak-line T Tauri star LkCa 4
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Brown D
(2014)
Discrepancies between isochrone fitting and gyrochronology for exoplanet host stars?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dumusque X
(2014)
THE KEPLER-10 PLANETARY SYSTEM REVISITED BY HARPS-N: A HOT ROCKY WORLD AND A SOLID NEPTUNE-MASS PLANET
in The Astrophysical Journal
Davies C
(2014)
Accretion discs as regulators of stellar angular momentum evolution in the ONC and Taurus-Auriga
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Neveu-VanMalle M
(2014)
WASP-94 A and B planets: hot-Jupiter cousins in a twin-star system
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Mancini L
(2014)
Physical properties of the WASP-67 planetary system from multi-colour photometry
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Hellier C
(2014)
Transiting hot Jupiters from WASP-South, Euler and TRAPPIST: WASP-95b to WASP-101b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Lohr M
(2014)
Period and amplitude variations in post-common-envelope eclipsing binaries observed with SuperWASP
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Haywood R
(2014)
Disentangling planetary orbits from stellar activity in radial-velocity surveys
in International Journal of Astrobiology
Barber J
(2014)
On radial anisotropy limits in stellar systems
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Delrez L
(2014)
Transiting planets from WASP-South, Euler, and TRAPPIST WASP-68 b, WASP-73 b, and WASP-88 b, three hot Jupiters transiting evolved solar-type stars???
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gillon M
(2014)
WASP-103 b: a new planet at the edge of tidal disruption
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Antel C
(2014)
Investigating Dunedin whistlers using volcanic lightning
in Geophysical Research Letters
Kelvin L
(2014)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): stellar mass functions by Hubble type
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gómez Maqueo Chew Y
(2014)
The EBLM project II. A very hot, low-mass M dwarf in an eccentric and long-period, eclipsing binary system from the SuperWASP Survey?
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Holdsworth D
(2014)
High-frequency A-type pulsators discovered using SuperWASP?†
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bryan M
(2014)
ERRATUM: "QATAR-2: A K DWARF ORBITED BY A TRANSITING HOT JUPITER AND A MORE MASSIVE COMPANION IN AN OUTER ORBIT" (2012, ApJ, 750, 84)
in The Astrophysical Journal
Baldry I
(2014)
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): AUTOZ spectral redshift measurements, confidence and errors
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Vidotto A
(2014)
Stellar magnetism: empirical trends with age and rotation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Anderson D
(2014)
Three newly discovered sub-Jupiter-mass planets: WASP-69b and WASP-84b transit active K dwarfs and WASP-70Ab transits the evolved primary of a G4+K3 binary?†
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Rostron J
(2014)
The thermal emission of the exoplanet WASP-3b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Barros S
(2014)
Revisiting the transits of CoRoT-7b at a lower activity level
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Smith A
(2014)
WASP-104b and WASP-106b: two transiting hot Jupiters in 1.75-day and 9.3-day orbits
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Sun L
(2015)
Long-term transit timing monitoring and homogenous study of WASP-32
in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Sicilia-Aguilar A
(2015)
Accretion dynamics of EX Lupi in quiescence The star, the spot, and the accretion column?
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Anderson D
(2015)
WASP-20b and WASP-28b: a hot Saturn and a hot Jupiter in near-aligned orbits around solar-type stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Grunblatt S
(2015)
DETERMINING THE MASS OF KEPLER-78b WITH NONPARAMETRIC GAUSSIAN PROCESS ESTIMATION
in The Astrophysical Journal
Johnson M
(2015)
ERRATUM: "MEASUREMENT OF THE NODAL PRECESSION OF WASP-33 b VIA DOPPLER TOMOGRAPHY" (2015, ApJL, 810, L23)
in The Astrophysical Journal
David T
(2015)
HII 2407: AN ECLIPSING BINARY REVEALED BY K2 OBSERVATIONS OF THE PLEIADES
in The Astrophysical Journal
Skottfelt J
(2015)
Searching for variable stars in the cores of five metal-rich globular clusters using EMCCD observations
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Fossati L.
(2015)
Characterising exoplanets and their environment with UV transmission spectroscopy
in arXiv e-prints
Aigrain S
(2015)
Testing the recovery of stellar rotation signals from Kepler light curves using a blind hare-and-hounds exercise
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Jeong J
(2015)
REANALYSES OF ANOMALOUS GRAVITATIONAL MICROLENSING EVENTS IN THE OGLE-III EARLY WARNING SYSTEM DATABASE WITH COMBINED DATA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bonomo A
(2015)
Characterization of small planets with Kepler and HARPS-N
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Johnson M
(2015)
MEASUREMENT OF THE NODAL PRECESSION OF WASP-33 b VIA DOPPLER TOMOGRAPHY
in The Astrophysical Journal
Motalebi F
(2015)
The HARPS-N Rocky Planet Search I. HD 219134 b: A transiting rocky planet in a multi-planet system at 6.5 pc from the Sun ?
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Dressing C
(2015)
THE MASS OF Kepler-93b AND THE COMPOSITION OF TERRESTRIAL PLANETS
in The Astrophysical Journal
| Description | SuperWASP is the UK's leading extra-solar planet detection program comprised of a consortium of eight academic institutions. SuperWASP consists of two robotic observatories that operate continuously throughout the year, allowing coverage of both hemispheres of the sky. The first, SuperWASP-North, is located on the island of La Palma among the Isaac Newton Group (ING) of telescopes. The second, SuperWASP-South, is located at the site of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), just outside Sutherland, South Africa. The observatories each consist of eight wide-angle cameras that simultaneously monitor the sky for planetary transit events. The eight cameras allow the monitoring of millions of stars simultaneously, enabling the detection of rare transit events. WASP has to date yielded over 150 discoveries of giant planets in close orbits about their host stars, making it the world's leading ground-based transit survey. |
| Exploitation Route | Education; Data mining of public archive. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education |
| URL | http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/SuperWASPMission.html |
| Description | WASP planet discoveries formed the basis for a number of successful press releases. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Policy & public services |
| Description | WASP |
| Organisation | Keele University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
| Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
| Impact | Over 200 Publications |
| Description | WASP |
| Organisation | Open University |
| Department | School of Physical Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
| Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
| Impact | Over 200 Publications |
| Description | WASP |
| Organisation | Queen's University Belfast |
| Department | Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
| Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
| Impact | Over 200 Publications |
| Description | WASP |
| Organisation | University of Leicester |
| Department | Department of Physics & Astronomy |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Design and implementation of WASP data-analysis pipeline. Design and implementation of WASP transit-search software. Design and implementation of WASP transit-fitting and orbit-determination software. |
| Collaborator Contribution | QUB: Fabrication, installation and operation of SuperWASP. Keele: Fabrication, installation and operation of WASP-South. Leicester: Design, implementation and maintenance of WASP data archive. |
| Impact | Over 200 Publications |