ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS INFORMATION NOTE
Ref.: PN 08/17 (NAM 08)
Issued by RAS Press Officers:
Dr Robert Massey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307 / 4582
Mobile: +44 (0)794 124 8035
E-mail: rm(at)ras.org.uk
Anita Heward
Tel: +44 (0)1483 420904
Mobile: +44 (0)7756 034243
E-mail: anitaheward(at)btinternet.com
NATIONAL ASTRONOMY MEETING PRESS ROOM (31 MARCH - 4 APRIL ONLY):
Tel: +44 (0)2890 975262
975263
975264
NAM 2008
http://nam2008.qub.ac.uk
Royal Astronomical Society
http://www.ras.org.uk
CONTACT DETAILS ARE LISTED AT THE END OF THIS RELEASE
RAS PN 08/17 (NAM 08) (EMBARGOED): THE (SUPER)WASP FACTORY FINDS 10 NEW
PLANETS IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS
In the last 6 months an international team of astronomers have used two
batteries of cameras, one in the Canary Islands and one in South Africa,
to discover 10 new planets in orbit around other stars (commonly known
as extrasolar planets). The results from the Wide Area Search for
Planets (SuperWASP) will be announced by team member Dr Don Pollacco of
Queen's University Belfast, in his talk at the RAS National Astronomy
Meeting (NAM 2008) on Tuesday 1 April.
Scientists have found more than 270 extrasolar planets since the first
one was discovered in the early 1990s. Most of these are detected
through their gravitational influence on the star they orbit - as it
moves the planet pulls on the star, tugging it back and forth. However,
making these discoveries depends on looking at each star over a period
of weeks or months and so the pace of discovery is fairly slow.
SuperWASP uses a different method. The two sets of cameras watch for
events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a
star and blocks out some of the star's light, so from the Earth the star
temporarily appears a little fainter. The SuperWASP cameras work as
robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once and each night
astronomers have data from millions of stars that they can check for
transits and hence planets. The transit method also allows scientists to
deduce the size and mass of each planet.
Each possible planet found using SuperWASP is then observed by
astronomers working at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the
Swiss Euler Telescope in Chile and the Observatoire de Haute Provence in
southern France, who use precision instruments to confirm or reject the
discovery.
45 planets have now been discovered using the transit method, and since
they started operation in 2004 the SuperWASP cameras have found 15 of
them - making them by far the most successful discovery instruments in
the world. The SuperWASP planets have masses between a middleweight 0.5
and a huge 8.3 times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar
System. A number of these new worlds are quite exotic. For example, a
year on WASP-12B (its orbital period) is just 1.1 days. The planet is so
close to its star that its daytime temperature could reach a searing
2300 degrees Celsius.
Dr Pollacco is delighted with the results. 'SuperWASP is now a
planet-finding production line and will revolutionise the detection of
large planets and our understanding of how they were formed. It's a
great triumph for European astronomers.'
FURTHER INFORMATION (INCLUDING IMAGES):
SuperWASP
Project website
http://www.superwasp.org
Images of the SuperWASP Cameras
1) http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dlp/SWASP_1.jpg - a close up of the 8
SuperWASP-North cameras.
2) http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dlp/SWASP_2.jpg - an aerial view of
the SuperWASP-North cameras (courtesy of Damon Hart-Davis,
http://d.hd.org).
3) http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dlp/SWASP_3.jpg - the SuperWASP-South
instrument.
Image of the Euler (Swiss) Telescope dome
http://www.cosmograil.org/images/euler-dome.jpg
Image of the SOPHIE spectrograph at the Observatoire de Haute Provence
http://www.obs-hp.fr/www/guide/sophie/sophie.html
RAS National Astronomy Meeting
http://nam2008.qub.ac.uk
RAS home page
http://www.ras.org.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
The SuperWASP cameras are operated by a consortium including the Isaac
Newton Group on La Palma, the Instituto Astrofisica Canarias, the
University of Keele, the University of Leicester, the Open University,
Queen's University Belfast and St Andrew?s University.
Follow up [observations] of SuperWASP exoplanet candidates are obtained
at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the Swiss Euler Telescope
at La Silla, Chile (in collaboration with colleagues at Geneva
Observatory) and at the 1.93-m telescope of the Observatoire de
Haute-Provence in France (in collaboration with colleagues at the
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris and the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de
Marseille).
The SuperWASP cameras in La Palma and South Africa are operated with
funding provided by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council
(STFC).
The RAS National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2008) is hosted by Queen's
University Belfast. It is principally sponsored by the RAS and the
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). NAM 2008 is being held
together with the UK Solar Physics (UKSP) and Magnetosphere, Ionosphere
and Solar-Terrestrial (MIST) spring meetings.
CONTACTS
Dr Don Pollacco
Astrophysics Research Centre
School of Mathematics and Physics
Queen's University Belfast
University Road
Belfast BT7 1NN
UK
E-mail: d.pollacco(at)qub.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 3512
Dr Ian Skillen
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes
Correos 321
E-38700, Santa Cruz de La Palma
Canary Islands
Spain
E-mail: wji(at)ing.iac.es
Tel: +34 922 425439
Dr Coel Hellier
Astrophysics Group
School of Physical and Geographical Sciences
Lennard-Jones Laboratories
Keele University
Staffordshire ST5 5BG
UK
E-mail: ch(at)astro.keele.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1782 584243
Dr Richard West
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester LE1 7RH
UK
E-mail: richard.west(at)astro.le.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)116 252 5206
Dr Carole Haswell
Department of Physics and Astronomy
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UK
E-mail: C.A.Haswell(at)open.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1908 653396
Dr Leslie Hebb
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of St Andrews
North Haugh
St Andrews
Fife KY16 9SS
UK
E-mail: leslie.hebb(at)st-andrews.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1334 461674
