New Polish telescope will search for extrasolar planets
New Polish telescope has been built in Argentina. It joined the group of three existing automated telescopes operating in South Africa and Australia - said Prof. Maciej Konacki, head of the Solaris project, the aim of which is to search for distant planets.
The project Solaris is carried out by astronomers from Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center PAS in Toruń since 2010. The project builds a global network of automated telescopes that will be used to search for extrasolar planets. In particular, researchers want to find planets in binary star systems (planet in such system has not one, but two "suns" is the sky).
Together with the latest instrument, the network has four half-meter mirror telescopes. Two of them work at the Sutherland observatory in South Africa, one in the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, and the latest is located in Argentina, near the town of Barreal, at the foothills of the Sierra del Tontal.
"The inauguration of our network is planned for this autumn. We still need to launch the new telescope and integrate its operation with other instruments" explained Prof. Maciej Konacki of the Astronomical Center PAS in Toruń.
Solaris-4 telescope is located at an altitude of 2600 meters above sea level. According to the project participants, a year ago only debris and rock fragments could be found at the top. To build the observatory, they had to provide access to electricity and the Internet from the astronomical institute 7 km away.
Argentina is one of the best places to conduct astronomical observations in the world, together with neighbouring Chile, which hosts a number of large and small telescopes (including one Polish telescope, belonging to the University of Warsaw). Until now, there were no Polish astronomical telescopes in Argentina.
Solaris Project is funded from several sources: the European Research Council, the Foundation for Polish Science, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center PAS. The website of the project is at www.projektsolaris.pl.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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