The XO Project is an international team of amateur and professional astronomers tasked with identifying extrasolar planets. They are led by Peter R. McCullough of the

Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...

. It is primarily funded by NASA's Origins Program and the Director's Discretionary Fund of the Space Telescope Science Institute.Astronomers Use Innovative Technique to Find Extrasolar Planet, ''HubbleSite''
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Duties

Preliminary identification of possible star candidates starts at the Haleakala telescope in Hawaii by a team of professional astronomers. Once they identify a star that dims slightly from time to time (the

transit method Methods of detecting exoplanets usually rely on indirect strategies – that is, they do not directly image the planet but deduce its existence from another signal. Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For e ...

), the information is forwarded to a team of amateur astronomers who then investigate for additional evidence suggesting this dimming is caused by a transiting planet. Once enough data is collected, it is forwarded to the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

McDonald Observatory McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, with additional faci ...

to confirm the presence of a transiting planet by a second team of professional astronomers.

Equipment

McCullough and his team employed a relatively inexpensive telescope called the XO Telescope, made from commercial equipment, to search for extrasolar planets. The construction of the one-of-a-kind telescope cost $60,000 for the hardware, and much more than that for the associated software. The telescope consists of two 200-millimeter telephoto camera lenses, and resembles

binoculars Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes (binocular vision) when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be held ...

in shape. It is similar to the

TrES Tres may refer to: * Tres (instrument), a Cuban musical instrument * Tres, Trentino, municipality in Italy * ''Tres'' (2014 film), a Filipino anthology drama film based on short stories * "Tres" (song) by Juanes *"Tres", a song by Líbido from thei ...

survey telescope. It stands on the summit of the

Haleakalā Haleakalā (; Hawaiian: ), or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive, active shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Island of Maui. The western 25% of the island is formed by another volcano, Mauna Kahalawai, als ...

volcano and 3,054 m (10,000 foot) in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. Their first discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a Sun-like star 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Corona Borealis—XO-1b—was reported May 16, 200
on Newswise
In 2016 three similar double telescopes were operating, two in Spain and one in Utah.

Discoveries

The ''XO telescope'' has discovered six objects so far, five are

hot Jupiter Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter (i.e. Jupiter analogue, Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to t ...

planets and one, XO-3b, may be a

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that have more mass than the biggest gas giant planets, but less than the least massive main sequence, main-sequence stars. Their mass is approximately 13 to 80 Jupiter mass, times that of Jupiter ()not big en ...

References

External links

The XO Project website

The XO Project website

(SpaceDaily) May 19, 2006 {{Exoplanet search projects Astronomy projects

Duties

Equipment

Discoveries

See also

Other Ground-Based Transit Surveys

References

External links