Hunting transiting exoplanets
Monday, March 2, 2015 - 07:30
in Astronomy & Space
European Southern Observatory (ESO) gears up for the exoplanet hunting. The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), a wide-field observing system made up of an array of twelve telescopes was installed at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. It will search for transiting exoplanets—planets that pass in front of their parent star and hence produce a slight dimming of the star's light that can be detected by sensitive instruments. "NGTS will have some sensitivity to habitable zone planets - these are planets at the right distance from their star that they would receive similar amounts of heat as the Earth does," Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick (UK) told astrowatch.net.