New exoplanet-hunting camera fires up in Chile

Nick Lavars Nick Lavars July 19, 2017


The astronomy community has just received another tool in the search for faraway worlds, with a new exoplanet hunting instrument entering service in Chile. The device will scan the sky from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) La Silla facility in the Atacama Desert, cataloguing potential exoplanets for further study by larger scientific instruments.

These two camera arrays work together to continually measure the brightness of thousands of stars, using software to detect momentary dimming of their light as a planet passes in front. This approach is called transit photometry, and is the same technique used by NASA's Kepler space telescope to detect thousands of exoplanets so far.

"Stations are needed in both the northern and southern hemisphere to obtain all-sky coverage," says Ignas Snellen, of Leiden University and the Mascara project lead. "With the second station at La Silla now in place, we can monitor almost all the brighter stars over the entire sky."

ESO says that the Mascara station at La Silla has now made its first successful test observations, and will now work with its northern sibling on its primary science aim: detecting "hot Jupiters." These large, distant worlds are similar to our Jupiter in physical terms, but orbit their stars more closely and in just a few hours, making for high surface temperatures.

More:
http://newatlas.com/mascara-exoplanet-hunter-eso/50551/

Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122852805














La Silla Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile, S.A.