Planet hunting telescope in South Africa wins prestigious award

The Wide Angle Search for Planets experiment, SuperWASP, which has a telescope located outside the Karoo town of Sutherland at the South African Astronomical Observatory has won the Group Achievement Award for Astronomy presented by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).  The RAS,  the UK's voice  for professional astronomers, annually presents a number of prizes honouring individuals and groups who have made an outstanding contribution to astronomy and astrophysics. The prizes will be presented at the 2010 National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2010) to be held in Glasgow between the 12th and the 16th of April. SuperWASP has so far detected 18 planets in orbit  around stars other than the Sun (extrasolar planets or exoplanets). This planet search experiment uses two clusters of 8 cameras, one on La Palma and one in South Africa, watching for characteristic dips in the brightness of stars as planets pass in front of them. Despite their modest resources, the team have made a world-class contribution to exoplanet science.  Of the 18 planets detected, 10 were found from South Africa. The S.A. Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland has among the darkest night skies of the many observatories around the world, which critically aids in the detection of the minute changes in the brightness of the stars due to their orbiting planets. SuperWASP is a consortium of 8 academic institutions: the University of Cambridge, the IAC, the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes, the University of Keele, the University of Leicester, the Open University, Queen's University Belfast and St Andrew's University. More information about SuperWasp and contact details can be found at: http://www.superwasp.org/The official Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) press release can be found at: http://www.ras.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1692&Itemid=2