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
Cameron AC
(2012)
Extrasolar planets: Astrophysical false positives.
in Nature
Campo C
(2011)
ON THE ORBIT OF EXOPLANET WASP-12b
in The Astrophysical Journal
Christian D
(2009)
WASP-10b: a 3M J , gas-giant planet transiting a late-type K star
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clark P
(2008)
The star formation efficiency and its relation to variations in the initial mass function
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clarke C
(2008)
Accretion-driven core collapse and the collisional formation of massive stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Covino E
(2013)
The GAPS programme with HARPS-N at TNG I. Observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect and characterisation of the transiting system Qatar-1?????
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Dale J
(2008)
The effect of stellar winds on the formation of a protocluster
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
David T
(2015)
HII 2407: AN ECLIPSING BINARY REVEALED BY K2 OBSERVATIONS OF THE PLEIADES
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
Deleuil M
(2008)
Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission VI. CoRoT-Exo-3b: the first secure inhabitant of the brown-dwarf desert
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
| 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 |