The MEarth Project is a United States
NSF-funded, robotic observatory that is part of
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, US. The project monitors the brightness of thousands of
red dwarf
''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...
stars with the goal of finding
transiting planets. As red dwarf stars are small, any transiting planet blocks a larger proportion of starlight than transits around a Sun-like star would. This allows smaller planets to be detected through ground-based observations.
; MEarth-North
Consists of eight
RC Optical Systems f/9
Ritchey-Chrétien telescopes consists of eight (on Paramount ME robotic mounts) paired with commercially available cameras with 2048 × 2048 Apogee U42 CCDs.
; MEarth-South
Consists of eight additional 40cm telescopes, each equipped with a CCD camera sensitive to red optical and near-infrared light. It observes from
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, east of
La Serena, Chile.
Planets discovered
*
GJ 1214 b
*
GJ 1132b
*
LHS 1140b
References
External links
MEarth Project Page
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory
Exoplanet search projects
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