SuperWASP Finds Its
First Transiting Exoplanets

A team of astronomers from the UK, France and Switzerland has discovered two new planets, orbiting around other stars. The extrasolar planets, named WASP-1b (also named as Garafía-1) and WASP-2b, were identified using the transit method by the world’s biggest survey planet-hunting telescope, known as SuperWASP North, and confirmed using a new instrument, known as SOPHIE, at the Observatoire de Haute Provence, France. These are the first extrasolar planets found by SuperWASP and it is expected that it will find dozens more of them over the next few years.

The SuperWASP facility is operated by the WASP consortium which consists of representatives from the Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Cambridge (Wide Field Astronomy Unit), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, the University of Keele, the University of Leicester, the Open University, the University of St Andrews and the South African Astronomical Observatory.

More information can be found in the following press releases:

• Wide-Eyed Telescope Finds Its First Transiting Planets Around Distant Stars. RAS Press Release PN 06/36, 25th September 2006. Available formats: TXT (local copy) | HTML.

• La Caza de Planetas Continúa. IAC Press Release, 26th September 2006. Available formats: HTML (local copy) | HTML.