New Telescope in Chile Now Searching for Alien Planets

Excerpt from  space.com

A new alien-planet–hunting telescope has just come online in Chile, and

it could help scientists peer into the atmospheres of relatively small

planets circling nearby stars.

The Next-Generation Transit Survey

(NGTS for short) — located at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO)

Paranal Observatory — is designed to seek out planets two to eight

times the diameter of Earth as they pass in front of their stars. Such a

planet will cause the light of the star to dip ever so slightly when

passing in front of it, allowing the telescope to detect the planet

during its transit.

“We are excited to begin our search for small planets around nearby stars,” Peter Wheatley, an NGTS project lead from the University

of Warwick, U.K., said in as statement. “The NGTS discoveries, and

follow-up observations by telescopes on the ground and in space, will be

important steps in our quest to study the atmospheres and composition

of small planets such as the Earth.”

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New Telescope in Chile Now Searching for Alien Planets