Wide Angle Search for Planets

WASP or Wide Angle Search for Planets is an international consortium of several academic organisations performing an ultra-wide angle search for <a href="/facts/Exoplanet/zjfmqfUf">exoplanets</a> using <a href="/facts/Transit_photometry/vFIblQe9">transit photometry</a>. The array of <a href="/facts/Robotic_telescope/kToUJdWx">robotic telescopes</a> aims to <a href="/facts/Astronomical_survey/6BE1V8V6">survey</a> the entire sky, simultaneously monitoring many thousands of stars at an <a href="/facts/Apparent_visual_magnitude/7pCTF1Me">apparent visual magnitude</a> from about 7 to 13.
WASP is the detection program composed of the <a href="/facts/Isaac_Newton_Group/QJBz9pvw">Isaac Newton Group</a>, <a href="/facts/Instituto_de_Astrof%C3%ADsica_de_Canarias/9mWBEdka">IAC</a> and six universities from the United Kingdom. The two continuously operating, robotic observatories cover the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. SuperWASP-North is at <a href="/facts/Roque_de_los_Muchachos_Observatory/WzGSXRJR">Roque de los Muchachos Observatory</a> on the mountain of that name which dominates <a href="/facts/La_Palma/3J7sj2oo">La Palma</a> in the <a href="/facts/Canary_Islands/7lfpqymu">Canary Islands</a>. WASP-South is at the <a href="/facts/South_African_Astronomical_Observatory/F1cjYtGC">South African Astronomical Observatory</a>, <a href="/facts/Sutherland,_South_Africa/UY0BMyeU">Sutherland</a> in the arid <a href="/facts/Roggeveld_Mountains/gLHkLDsh">Roggeveld Mountains</a> of <a href="/facts/South_Africa/vvXQpLgq">South Africa</a>. These use eight wide-angle cameras that simultaneously monitor the sky for planetary transit events and allow the monitoring of millions of stars simultaneously, enabling the detection of rare transit events.
Instruments used for follow-up characterization employing <a href="/facts/Doppler_spectroscopy/0uTvj3pq">doppler spectroscopy</a> to determine the exoplanet's mass include the <a href="/facts/HARPS/glno5GIm">HARPS</a> spectrograph of ESO's 3.6-metre telescope as well as the Swiss <a href="/facts/Euler_Telescope/p8ezh3mG">Euler Telescope</a>, both located at <a href="/facts/La_Silla_Observatory/zFMd09aY">La Silla Observatory</a>, Chile. WASP's design has also been adopted by the <a href="/facts/Next-Generation_Transit_Survey/NkuvQgW5">Next-Generation Transit Survey</a>. As of 2016, the <a href="/facts/Extrasolar_Planets_Encyclopaedia/5xxGCLkJ">Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia</a> data base contains a total of 2,107 extrasolar planets of which 118 were discoveries by WASP.

Wide Angle Search for Planets open-in-new

Wide Angle Search for Planets