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Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy located at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. The project's principal investigator is the American astronomer Jason Eastman. The telescopes were manufactured by PlaneWave Instruments. Science objectives The primary science goal of MINERVA is to discover Earth-like planets in close-in (less than 50-day) orbits around nearby stars, and super-Earths (3-15 times the mass of Earth) in the habitable zones of the closest Sun-like stars. The secondary goal is to look for transits (eclipses) of known and newly discovered extrasolar planets. The unique design of the MINERVA observatory allows the pursuit of both goals simultaneously. Specifications and status * Telescopes: Four PlaneWave CDK700, 0.7m telescope ...
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A Diagram Of One Of The Minerva Project Enclosures With Two Telescopes
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ...
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Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (or KELT) is an astronomical observation system formed by two robotic telescopes that are conducting a survey for transiting exoplanets around bright stars. The project is jointly administered by members of Ohio State University Department of Astronomy, the Vanderbilt University Department of Physics and Astronomy Astronomy Group, the Lehigh University Department of Physics, and the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). KELT Telescopes KELT consists of two telescopes, KELT-North in Arizona in the United States, and KELT-South at the SAAO observing station near Sutherland, South Africa. Each KELT telescope consists of a wide field (26 degrees by 26 degrees) medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k x 4k Apogee CCD. Each can also be equipped with an alternative narrower field (10.8 degrees by 10.8 degrees) lens with a 7.1 cm aperture for a narrow angle campaign mode. KELT-North u ...
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Astronomical Surveys
An astronomical survey is a general map or image of a region of the sky (or of the whole sky) that lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of images, spectra, or other observations of objects that share a common type or feature. Surveys are often restricted to one band of the electromagnetic spectrum due to instrumental limitations, although multiwavelength surveys can be made by using multiple detectors, each sensitive to a different bandwidth. Surveys have generally been performed as part of the production of an astronomical catalog. They may also search for transient astronomical events. They often use wide-field astrographs. Scientific value Sky surveys, unlike targeted observation of a specific object, allow astronomers to catalog celestial objects and perform statistical analyses on them without complex corrections for selection effects. In some cases, an astronomer interested in a particular object will find tha ...
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Astronomical Instruments
Astronomical instruments include: *Alidade * Armillary sphere *Astrarium * Astrolabe *Astronomical clock *the Antikythera mechanism, an astronomical clock *Blink comparator *Bolometer *the Canterbury Astrolabe Quadrant *Celatone *Celestial sphere *Charge-coupled device *Computers *CMOS sensor *Coronagraph *Cosmolabe *Dioptra *Equatorial ring *Equatorium * Gnomon * Inclinometer * Interferometer * Kamal *Meridian circle * Microchannel plate detector *Mural instrument *Nebra sky disk *Nocturnal * Octant *Optical spectrometer, a.k.a., Spectrograph *Orrery *Photographic plate *Photometer *Planisphere *the Prague astronomical clock * Quadrant *Reticle *Radio plate *Retroreflector * Scaphe * Sextant * Starshade *Space telescope *Spectrometers *Sundial *Telescope *Torquetum * Triquetrum *Zenith telescope See also *Astronomy *Outline of astronomy *Surveying instrument *Measurement instrument {{DEFAULTSORT:Astronomical instruments Instruments Instrument may refer to: Science and te ...
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NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ...
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Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ...
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XO Telescope
The XO Telescope is an astronomical telescope located on the 3,054 m (10,000 foot) summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii. It consists of two 200-millimeter telephoto camera lenses, and resembles binoculars in shape. It is used by the XO Project to detect extrasolar planets using the transit method. It is similar to the TrES survey telescope. The construction of the one-of-a-kind telescope cost $60,000 for the hardware, and much more than that for the associated software. Planets discovered The ''XO telescope'' has discovered six objects so far, five are hot Jupiter planets and one, XO-3b, may be a brown dwarf. All were discovered using the transit method. ''Light green rows indicate that the planet orbits one of the stars in a binary star system.'' See also * List of extrasolar planets A subset of XO light curves are available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Other Ground-Based Transit Surveys * Next-Generation Transit Survey * Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey or ''TrES'' * H ...
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Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey
The Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey, or ''TrES'', used three 4-inch (10 cm) telescopes located at Lowell Observatory, Palomar Observatory, and Teide Observatory to locate exoplanets. It was made using the network of small, relatively inexpensive telescopes designed to look specifically for planets orbiting bright stars using the transit method. The array used 4-inch Schmidt telescopes having CCD cameras and automated search routines. The survey was created by David Charbonneau of the Center for Astrophysics, Timothy Brown of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Edward Dunham of Lowell Observatory. The TrES survey is no longer operational. Discoveries The TrES project discovered a total of five planets in its years of operation. All were discovered using the transit method. Note that the discovery papers do not use the "b" suffix typically used in extrasolar planet designations. While forms with and without the b are used in the literature, the table here us ...
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Next-Generation Transit Survey
The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a ground-based robotic search for exoplanets. The facility is located at Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, about 2 km from ESO's Very Large Telescope and 0.5 km from the VISTA Survey Telescope. Science operations began in early 2015. The astronomical survey is managed by a consortium of seven European universities and other academic institutions from Chile, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Prototypes of the array were tested in 2009 and 2010 on La Palma, and from 2012 to 2014 at Geneva Observatory. The aim of NGTS is to discover super-Earths and exo-Neptunes transiting relatively bright and nearby stars with an apparent magnitude of up to 13. The survey uses transit photometry, which precisely measures the dimming of a star to detect the presence of a planet when it crosses in front of it. NGTS consists of an array of twelve commercial 0.2-metre telescopes ( f/2.8), each equipped w ...
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HATNet Project
The Hungarian Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) project is a network of six small fully automated "HAT" telescopes. The scientific goal of the project is to detect and characterize extrasolar planets using the transit method. This network is used also to find and follow bright variable stars. The network is maintained by the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. The HAT acronym stands for ''Hungarian-made Automated Telescope'', because it was developed by a small group of Hungarians who met through the Hungarian Astronomical Association. The project started in 1999 and has been fully operational since May 2001. Equipment The prototype instrument, HAT-1 was built from a 180 mm focal length and 65 mm aperture Nikon telephoto lens and a Kodak KAF-0401E chip of 512 × 768, 9 μm pixels. The test period was from 2000 to 2001 at the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest. HAT-1 was transported from Budapest to the Steward Observatory, Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA, in J ...
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Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, initially detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like starsFor the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, "Sun-like" means G-type star. Data for Sun-like stars was not available so this statistic is an extrapolation from data about K-type stars. have an "Earth-sized"For the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, Earth-sized means 1–2 Earth radii. planet in the habitable zone. ...
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List Of Extrasolar Planets
These are lists of exoplanets. Most of these were discovered by the Kepler space telescope. There are an additional 2,054 potential exoplanets from Kepler's first mission yet to be confirmed, as well as 978 from its " Second Light" mission and 4,081 from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. For yearly lists on physical, orbital and other properties, as well as on discovery circumstances and other aspects, ''see ''. Nomenclature Methods of detection Specific exoplanet lists Lists of exoplanets *List of directly imaged exoplanets *List of exoplanets discovered before 2000 () *List of exoplanets discovered between 2000–2009 () *List of exoplanets discovered in 2010 () * List of exoplanets discovered in 2011 () *List of exoplanets discovered in 2012 () *List of exoplanets discovered in 2013 () * List of exoplanets discovered in 2014 () * List of exoplanets discovered in 2015 () * List of exoplanets discovered in 2016 () * List of exoplanets discovere ...
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