Facilities

The Extrasolar planets theme has access to an array of world-leading facilities, both locally and internationally.  

Read about our local facilities.

International facilities

VLT array

Our academics make use of data gathered by the Very Large Telescope array (VLT), both remotely and by visiting the facility.

The VLT is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy at the beginning of the third Millennium. It is the world's most advanced optical instrument, consisting of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors of 8.2m diameter and four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. The telescopes can work together, in groups of two or three, to form a giant 'interferometer', the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, allowing astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes.  The VLT array is located at the Paranal Observatory in Cerro Paranal, within the Atacama desert of northern Chile.

Gemini Observatory

Dr Jenny Patience is one of our academics who utilises the world-leading facilities of Gemini Observatory to directly detect exoplanets.

The Gemini Observatory consists of twin 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescopes located on two of the best observing sites on the planet. From their locations on mountains in Hawaii and Chile, Gemini Observatory’s telescopes can collectively access the entire sky. They are currently among the largest and most advanced optical/infrared  telescopes available to astronomers.

The Gemini telescopes were built and are operated by a consortium consisting of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. This partnership is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).

Space Telescopes

Dr Frederic Pont and Dr David Sing make use of NASA's world-famous space telescopes to detect the atmospheres of extrasolarplanets.

Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was carried into orbit by a space shuttle in April 1990. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST was built by the United States space agency, NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency, and is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute. The HST is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Spitzer

The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is an infrared space observatory launched in 2003. It is the fourth and final of NASA's Great Observatories. The planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009. Without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very cold temperatures needed to operate, most instruments are no longer usable. However, the two shortest wavelength modules of the IRAC camera are still operable with the same sensitivity as before the cryogen was exhausted, and will continue to be used in the Spitzer Warm Mission.