Project support for the Wide Angle Search for Planets
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leicester
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.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Richard West (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Maxted P
(2011)
Discovery of a stripped red giant core in a bright eclipsing binary system? J0247-25
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Madhusudhan N
(2011)
A high C/O ratio and weak thermal inversion in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-12b.
in Nature
Enoch B
(2011)
WASP-35b, WASP-48b, AND HAT-P-30b/WASP-51b: TWO NEW PLANETS AND AN INDEPENDENT DISCOVERY OF A HAT PLANET
in The Astronomical Journal
Smalley B
(2011)
SuperWASP observations of pulsating Am stars
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Maxted P
(2011)
WASP-41b: A Transiting Hot Jupiter Planet Orbiting a Magnetically Active G8V Star
in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Anderson D
(2011)
WASP-31b: a low-density planet transiting a metal-poor, late-F-type dwarf star
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Faedi F
(2011)
Detection limits for close eclipsing and transiting substellar and planetary companions to white dwarfs in the WASP survey Sub-stellar and planetary companions to WDs
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fossati L
(2010)
METALS IN THE EXOSPHERE OF THE HIGHLY IRRADIATED PLANET WASP-12b
in The Astrophysical Journal
Hellier C
(2010)
WASP-29b: A SATURN-SIZED TRANSITING EXOPLANET
in The Astrophysical Journal
Cameron A
(2010)
Line-profile tomography of exoplanet transits - II. A gas-giant planet transiting a rapidly rotating A5 star? A gas-giant planet transiting an A5 star
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society