TRAPPIST

Description

TRAPPIST is controlled from Liège, Belgium, with some autonomous features. It consists of two 60 cm reflecting robotic telescopes located at the ESO La Silla Observatory (housed in the dome of the retired Swiss T70 telescope) in Chile and at Oukaïmeden Observatory in Morocco.

The 60 cm f/8 Ritchey–Chrétien design telescopes and New Technology Mount NTM-500 were built by ASTELCO Systems, a company in Germany. The CCD camera was built by Finger Lakes Instrumentation (USA), providing a 22 x 22 arcminutes field of view. The camera is fitted with a double filter wheel, allowing 12 different filters and one clear position.

The telescope condominium is a joint venture between the University of Liège, Belgium, and the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, and among other tasks, it specializes in searching for comets and exoplanets.

In November 2010, it was one of the few telescopes that observed a stellar occultation of the planetary body Eris, revealing that it may be smaller than Pluto, and it helped observe a stellar occultation by Makemake, when it passed in front of the star NOMAD 1181-0235723. The observations of this event showed it lacked a significant atmosphere.

A team of astronomers headed by Michaël Gillon, of the Institut d'Astrophysique et Géophysique at the University of Liège in Belgium, used the telescope to observe the ultracool dwarf star 2MASS J23062928-0502285, now also known as TRAPPIST-1. By utilising transit photometry, they discovered seven terrestrial planets, at least three of which were Earth-sized, orbiting the star; the innermost two were found to be tidally locked to their host star while the outermost appears to lie either within the system's habitable zone or just outside of it. The team published its findings in the May 2016 issue of the Nature journal.

While TRAPPIST-1 is the only planetary system discovered by TRAPPIST, other planetary systems have been discovered by SPECULOOS and given SPECULOOS-n designations, with TRAPPIST-1 being SPECULOOS-1.

Name

As with the other space observation projects of the University of Liège like SPECULOOS, Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope is a backronym, referring to traditional Belgian Trappist beer.

Gallery

File:TRAPPIST telescope at La Silla Eso1023e.jpg|The 60 cm telescope is operated from Liège, Belgium, away. File:The TRAPPIST telescope at La Silla.jpg|TRAPPIST's enclosure File:Starry night invites to go out and look to the stars.jpg|TRAPPIST is housed at the former Swiss T70 telescope site File:Comet ISON (C-2012 S1) by TRAPPIST on 2013-11-15.jpg|Comet ISON as captured by TRAPPIST before the comet disintegrated a few days later File:Tarantula Nebula TRAPPIST.jpg|First light image of the Tarantula Nebula taken by TRAPPIST in 2010 File:The TRAPPIST telescope in its dome at La Silla.webm|The TRAPPIST telescope in its dome at ESO's La Silla Observatory

References

References

1. "TRAPPIST-1".
2. (September 2011). "The Messenger no. 145".
3. "ASTELCO Systems - Projects".
4. (June 9, 2010). "TRAPPIST telescope to scout the sky and uncover exoplanets and comets".
5. (8 November 2010). "Former 'tenth planet' may be smaller than Pluto". New Scientist.
6. (21 November 2012). "Dwarf Planet Makemake Lacks Atmosphere".
7. "Three Potentially Habitable Worlds Found Around Nearby Ultracool Dwarf Star – Currently the best place to search for life beyond the Solar System".
8. (2 May 2016). "Three New Planets Are the Best Bets for Life".
9. (12 May 2016). "Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star". Nature.
10. (8 June 2010). "New National Telescope at La Silla—TRAPPIST to Scout the Sky and Uncover Exoplanets and Comets".
11. (September 2022). "Two temperate super-Earths transiting a nearby late-type M dwarf". [[Astronomy & Astrophysics]].