The Anglo Australian Planet Search or (AAPS) is a long-term
astronomical survey
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 obje ...
started in 1998 and continuing to the present. It is being carried out on the 3.9-metre
Anglo-Australian Telescope
The Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) is a 3.9-metre equatorially mounted telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory and situated at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, at an altitude of a little over 1,100 m. In 20 ...
(AAT) of the
Anglo-Australian Observatory
The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, was an optical and near-infrared astronomy observatory with its headquarters in North Ryde in suburban Sydney, Australia. Originally funded jointly by the U ...
in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. The purpose of this survey is to catalog planets around more than 240
nearby stars
This list covers all known stars, brown dwarfs, and sub-brown dwarfs within of the Sun. So far, 131 such objects have been found, of which only 22 are bright enough to be visible without a telescope. The visible light needs to reach or excee ...
of the southern hemisphere. For its observations, the AAT uses the ''University College London Echelle Spectrograph'', UCLES, an
echelle spectrograph from the
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
located at the telescope's
coudé focus
A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternat ...
.
This survey uses the
radial velocity method
Doppler spectroscopy (also known as the radial-velocity method, or colloquially, the wobble method) is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in t ...
to search for
extrasolar planets
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, init ...
.
The survey eventually switched its main focus to detecting long-period Jupiter analogs.
[The Anglo-Australian Planet Search. XXIII. Two New Jupiter Analogs](_blank)
Robert A. Wittenmyer, Jonathan Horner, C.G. Tinney, R.P. Butler, H.R.A. Jones, Mikko Tuomi, G.S. Salter, B.D. Carter, F. Elliott Koch, S.J. O'Toole, J. Bailey, D. Wright
Planets discovered by AAPS
This survey has announced the discovery of 28 planetary objects as of February 2014, including three multi-planet systems.
See also
*
High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher
The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. H ...
is another planet detector in the southern hemisphere.
*
Lists of exoplanets
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 ...
References
External links
Anglo-Australian Planet Search Home Page
Astronomical surveys
Exoplanet search projects
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