Three New Planets Announced by UK's Planet Hunters (Forwarded)

Science and Technology Facilities Council
Swindon, U.K.

Contacts:

Gill Ormrod
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Press Office
Tel: +44 (0)1793 442 012

Dr Don Pollacco
Queen's University, Belfast
WASP Project Scientist
Tel: +44 (0)2890 973 512

Dr Coel Hellier
Keele University
Tel: +44 (0) 1782 584 243

Prof Andrew Collier-Cameron
St Andrews University
Tel: +44 (0)1334 463 147

31 October 2007

Three New Planets Announced by UK's Planet Hunters

The UK's leading team of planet-hunting astronomers, the Wide Area Search
for Planets (WASP), today (31st October 2007) announced the discovery of
three new planets.

These extra-solar planets were seen to pass in front of, or transit, their
host star. Studying such planets outside of our Solar System allows
scientists to investigate how planetary systems form. WASP is the first
team to detect planets in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere using
this technique.

Dr Coel Hellier, of Keele University, comments: "When we see a transit we
can deduce the size and mass of the planet and also what it is made of, so
we can use these planets to study how solar systems form."

WASP-4 and WASP-5 are the first planets discovered by the WASP project's
cameras in South Africa, and were confirmed by a collaboration with Swiss
and French astronomers. "These two are now the brightest transiting
planets in the Southern hemisphere," said Dr Hellier. WASP-3 is the third
planet that the team has found in the North, using the SuperWASP camera
sited in the Canary Islands. Dr Don Pollacco, of Queen's University
Belfast, said, "We are the only team to have found transiting planets in
both the Northern and Southern hemispheres; for the first time we have
both SuperWASP cameras running, giving complete coverage of the whole
sky."

Exoplanet expert Prof Andrew Cameron, of St. Andrews University, comments:
"All three planets are similar to Jupiter, but are orbiting their stars so
closely that their 'year' lasts less than two days. These are among the
shortest orbital periods yet discovered." Being so close to their star the
surface temperatures of the planets will be more than 2000 degrees
Celsius, so it is unlikely that life as we know it could survive there.
But the finding of Jupiter-mass planets around other stars supports the
idea that there are also many Earth-sized planets waiting to be discovered
as astronomers' technology improves.

The WASP project is the most ambitious project in the world designed to
discover large planets. Funding for the project comes from the UK
Universities and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Note: The discovery of WASP-3, WASP-4 and WASP-5 is being announced by the
WASP project this week at an international conference on extrasolar
planets in Suzhou (near Shanghai), China.

Notes for Editors:

Images
[http://www.scitech.ac.uk/resources/image/millplan.jpg (870KB)]

An artist's impression of an extra solar planet
Photo credit: David A Hardy, astroart.org
Copyright: STFC

Further artists impressions of extra solar planets are available from Gill
Ormrod in the STFC press office (contact details above).

SuperWASP

SuperWASP is the UK's leading extra-solar planet detection program
comprising of a consortium of eight academic institutions which include
Cambridge University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Isaac
Newton Group of telescopes, Keele University, Leicester University, the
Open University, Queen's University Belfast and St. Andrew's University.

Transit

A transit occurs when a planet passes in front of its star, blocking some
light and causing a small dip in the brightness of the star. The WASP
cameras monitor millions of stars, looking for these dips.
Extrasolar planet

A planet around another star, rather than our Sun. Over 200 are currently
known to astronomers, but the majority have only periods firmly
established and are as massive as Jupiter.

Exoplanet

An abbreviation of "extrasolar planet."

WASP cameras

Arrays of wide-field cameras monitoring millions of stars for transit
events. One array of 8 cameras (SuperWASP) is sited in the Northern
hemisphere, on La Palma in the Canary Islands, and is operated by Queen's
University Belfast. The other array of 8 cameras is sited in the Southern
hemisphere is South Africa, and is operated by Keele University. Each
camera consists of a 200mm f/1.8 lens backed by a high-specification 2048
x 2048 CCD chip.

WASP project

The acronym stands for "Wide Area Search for Planets", a consortium of UK
universities searching for transiting exoplanets.

WASP-3, WASP-4, WASP-5

The names given to planets discovered by the WASP project. WASP-1 and
WASP-2 were discovered last year.

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