Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2015

SPACE CHRONICLES T he Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) has achieved first light at ESO’s Paranal Ob- servatory. This project will search for transiting exoplanets — planets that pass in front of their parent star and hence produce a slight dimming of the star’s light that can be detected by sensitive instru- ments. The telescopes will focus Newexoplanet-hunting telescopes on Paranal by ESO T his night time long-exposure view shows the telescopes during testing. The very brilliant Moon appears in the centre of the picture and the VISTA (right) and VLT (left) domes can also be seen on the horizon. [ESO/G. Lambert] on discovering Neptune-sized and smaller planets, with diameters between two and eight times that of Earth. The Next-Generation Transit Sur- vey is a wide-field observing system made up of an array of twelve tele- scopes, each with an aperture of 20 centimetres. This new facility, built by a UK, Swiss and German consor- tium, is located in northern Chile and benefits from the superb ob-