WIREDGOV

A UK-led telescope is beginning its search for planets around bright and nearby stars.

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), which aims to search for transiting exoplanets by detecting the slight dimming of a star when one of these planets passes in front, has achieved first light at European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in northern Chile.

The telescope will be operated remotely by a consortium of four UK universities (Warwick, Leicester, Queen’s Belfast and Cambridge), Geneva Observatory and the German Space Agency (DLR) where all the data will also be processed and analysed.

Dr Peter Wheatley, one of the NGTS project leads from the University of Warwick, said:

“We are excited to begin our search for small planets around nearby stars. The NGTS discoveries, and follow-up observations by telescopes on the ground and in space, will be important steps in our quest to study the atmospheres and composition of small planets such as the Earth.”

Built by a UK, Swiss and German consortium in the Atacama Desert and comprising twelve individual robotic telescopes, NGTS can detect small dips in the brightness of a star and can recognise as little as 0.1% of the light coming from a star – less than previous ground-based surveys.

Explaining how detecting dips in star brightness will help the researchers find planets Dr Wheatley said:

“The smaller the dip, the smaller the planet, and our goal is to find planets from Neptune size down to about twice the size of the Earth. NGTS builds on our success with the Wide-Angle Search for Planets (WASP) project, where collaborators in the UK have led the world in the discovery of transiting Jupiters and Saturns.

“Planets between Earth and Neptune size, known as super-Earths, appear to be common around other stars and yet are poorly understood because there are no examples in our own Solar System. We want to find out what they are made of and study their atmospheres.”

NGTS builds on the heritage of SuperWASP, the earlier UK extra-solar planet detection programme, which found over 100 Jupiter-sized worlds around other stars and for which STFC provided operational support as well as supporting the exploitation of the projects data.

The NGTS facility is an array of twelve relatively-small telescopes each fitted with an advanced scientific digital camera manufactured in the UK (by e2v and Andor Technology Ltd). Each of the twelve telescopes is mounted on its own fully steerable telescope mount, and the telescope array is protected by a building with a robotically-controlled sliding roof, that was designed and manufactured by GR Pro Ltd in the UK.

This is the first telescope project hosted, but not operated, by ESO. The NGTS facility is co-located with the world’s largest telescope, ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), which will be used to make detailed studies of NGTS planets and their atmospheres. The £2.5m capital costs of the project have been met by the consortium institutes and the running costs are currently funded by the UK through STFC.

For the full ESO release please see the ESO website.

Corinne Mosese 
STFC media officer
Tel: 01793 442870