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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 exoplanets using transit photometry. The array of robotic telescopes aims to Astronomical survey, survey the entire sky, simultaneously monitoring many thousands of stars at an apparent visual magnitude from about 7 to 13. WASP is the detection program composed of the Isaac Newton Group, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, IAC and six universities from the United Kingdom. The two continuously operating, robotic observatories cover the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. SuperWASP-North is at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the mountain of that name which dominates La Palma in the Canary Islands. WASP-South is at the South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland, South Africa, Sutherland in the arid Roggeveld Mountains of South Africa. These use eight wide-angle cameras that simultaneously monitor the sky for pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. In 2016, it was recognized that the first possible evidence of an exoplanet had been noted in 1917. In collaboration with ground-based and other space-based observatories the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to give more insight into exoplanet traits, such as their composition, environmental conditions, and potential for life. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Silla Observatory
La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are also located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena, on the outskirts of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest and most remote areas in the world. Like other observatories in this region, La Silla is far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory—home to the Very Large Telescope—it has some of the darkest night skies on Earth. History Following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was La Silla in the southern part of the Atacama Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen's University Belfast
The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of the Queen's University of Ireland and opened four years later, together with University of Galway (as ''Queen's College, Galway'') and University College Cork (as ''Queen's College, Cork''). Queen's offers approximately 300 academic degree programmes at various levels. The current president and Chancellor (education), vice-chancellor is Ian Greer (obstetrician), Ian Greer. The annual income of the institution for 2023–24 was £474.2 million, of which £105.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £345.9 million. Queen's is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, Universities UK and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open University
The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off-campus; many of its courses (both undergraduate and postgraduate education, postgraduate) can also be studied anywhere in the world. There are also a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the university campus at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, where they use the staff facilities for research, as well as more than 1,000 members of academic and research staff and over 2,500 administrative, operational and support staff. The OU was established in 1969 and was initially based at Alexandra Palace, north London, using the television studios and editing facilities which had been vacated by the BBC. The first students ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keele University
Keele University is a Public university#United Kingdom, public research university in Keele, approximately from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire, it was granted university status by Royal Charter as the University of Keele in 1962. Keele occupies a rural campus close to the village of Keele and includes extensive woods, lakes and Keele Hall set in the Staffordshire Potteries. It has a science park and a conference centre, and is the largest campus university in the UK. The university's Keele University Medical School, Medical School operates the clinical part of its courses from a separate campus at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. The School of Nursing and Midwifery is based at the nearby Clinical Education Centre. History Establishment Cambridge and Oxford extension lectures had been arranged in the Potteries since the 1890s, but outside any organised educational framework or establishment. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Newton Group Of Telescopes
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes or ING consists of three optical telescopes: the William Herschel Telescope, the Isaac Newton Telescope, and the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, operated by a collaboration between the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Dutch NWO and the Spanish IAC. The telescopes are located at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands. See also * Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ... References External linksING Homepage [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth Analog
An Earth analog, also called an Earth twin or second Earth, is a Exoplanet, planet or Exomoon, moon with environmental conditions similar to those found on Earth. The term Earth-like planet is also used, but this term may refer to any terrestrial planet. The possibility is of particular interest to Astrobiology, astrobiologists and astronomers under reasoning that the more similar a planet is to Earth, the more likely it is to be capable of sustaining complex extraterrestrial life. As such, it has long been speculated and the subject expressed in science, philosophy, science fiction and popular culture. Advocates of space colonization and space and survival have long sought an Earth analog for settlement. In the far future, humans might artificially produce an Earth analog by terraforming. Before the scientific search for and study of exoplanet, extrasolar planets, the possibility was argued through philosophy and science fiction. Philosophers have suggested that the size of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methods Of Detecting Extrasolar Planets
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 example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the glare from the parent star washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the exoplanets reported have been detected directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star. Established detection methods The following methods have proven successful at least once for discovering a new planet or detecting an already discovered planet: Radial velocity A star with a planet will move in its own small orbit in response to the planet's gravity. This leads to variations in the speed with which the star moves toward or away from Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gigabytes
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB. This definition is used in all contexts of science (especially data science), engineering, business, and many areas of computing, including storage capacities of hard drives, solid-state drives, and tapes, as well as data transmission speeds. The term is also used in some fields of computer science and information technology to denote (10243 or 230) bytes, however, particularly for sizes of RAM. Thus, some usage of ''gigabyte'' has been ambiguous. To resolve this difficulty, IEC 80000-13 clarifies that a ''gigabyte'' (GB) is 109 bytes and specifies the term ''gibibyte'' (GiB) to denote 230 bytes. These differences are still readily seen, for example, when a 400 GB drive's capacity is displayed by Microsoft Windows as 372 GB instead o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Square Degree
__NOTOC__ A square degree (deg2) is a non- SI unit measure of solid angle. Other denotations include ''sq. deg.'' and (°)2. Just as degrees are used to measure parts of a circle, square degrees are used to measure parts of a sphere. Analogous to one degree being equal to radians, a square degree is equal to ()2 steradians (sr), or about sr or about . The whole sphere has a solid angle of which is approximately : : 4 \pi \left(\frac\right)^2 \, ^2 = \frac ~ ^2 = \frac ~ ^2 \approx 41\,252.96 ~ ^2. Subdivisions Each square degree is equal to 3600 square arcminutes, and each square arcminute is equal to 3600 square arcseconds. So, each square degree is equal to 12,960,000 square arcseconds. The whole sphere contains about 148.51 million square arcminutes and about 534.64 billion square arcseconds. Examples * The full moon covers only about of the sky when viewed from the surface of the Earth. The Moon is only a half degree across (i.e. a circular diameter of ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Mechanics, Inc
Optical Mechanics, Inc. or OMI is a high-end American telescope and optics instrument manufacturer. OMI was founded in 2002 and produces observatory telescopes, Lidar telescopes, optical tube assemblies, telescope mirrors and reflective coatings for mirrors. OMI mirrors are used by other telescope makers such as Obsession Telescopes. Also taking on custom projects, they produced the 48-inch Dob, a aperture, 4, Dobsonian telescope called "Barbarella" and featured in Astronomy Technology Today magazine (June 2008 Issue). OMI is located in the US state of Iowa. OMI procured the assets of the former optics company Torus Technologies. OMI has an optics shop where it does work on telescopes. OMI produced the 60 cm, f/10 telescope for TUBITAK National Observatory in Turkey. OMI built the telescope mount for the SuperWASP telescope. The Robotic telescope Rigel Telescope was finished in 2002, a Talon program controlled 0.37-meter (14.5 in) F/14 telescope. OMI helped re-furb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andor Technology
Oxford Instruments Andor Ltd is a global developer and manufacturer of scientific cameras, microscopy systems and spectrographs for academic, government, and industrial applications. Founded in 1989, the company's products play a central role in the advancement of research in the fields of life sciences, physical sciences, and industrial applications. Andor was purchased for £176 million in December 2013 by Oxford Instruments. The company is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and now employs over 400 staff across the group at its offices in Belfast, Japan, China, Switzerland and the US. Oxford Instruments Andor designs, manufactures, and sells scientific imaging equipment, including charge-coupled device (CCD), electron-multiplying CCD (EMCCD), scientific CMOS (sCMOS - an improved Active pixel sensor), and intensified charge-coupled device camera systems, spectroscopy instrumentation, laser-based and laser-free microscopy systems and software. History Oxford Instruments Andor w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
