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Unistellar has announced that the eVscope, its
revolutionary and powerful new consumer telescope, has demonstrated the ability
to detect transiting exoplanets. This will allow citizen astronomers who soon
receive the first eVscopes to begin contributing—easily but decisively—to one
of the most exciting scientific endeavors in astronomy today: the search for
worlds around distant suns.
Unistellar is the start-up behind this uniquely
user-friendly digital telescope. The eVscope’s light-amplification technology
and autonomous field detection make it possible for anyone to observe galaxies,
nebulae, and comets in unparalleled crisp and colorful detail. In partnership
with the SETI Institute, the Unistellar eVscope also allows everyone to
contribute to astronomical discoveries while observing the night sky.
The Unistellar team recently used an eVscope to
identify the transit of two Jupiter-size planets in distant constellations:
Osiris, known as HD 209458b, a gas giant 160 light-years from our Solar System;
and WASP-43b, a “hot Jupiter” 280 light-years away. The
Unistellar eVscope detected the small variation in light generated when these
exoplanets traveled in front of their stars.
“Detecting transiting exoplanets with a
worldwide array of these powerful backyard telescopes will generate invaluable
astronomical data,” explained Franck Marchis, senior astronomer at the SETI
Institute and Unistellar’s Chief Scientific Officer. “With enough data points
collected from coordinated observing campaigns using eVscopes, scientists will
be able to refine the orbits of those new worlds, probe their surroundings, and
detect tiny gravitational influences that indicate of the presence of a smaller
nearby exoplanet in the same system.”
A single Unistellar eVscope was sufficient to
make this detection. Soon, the company will start delivering more than 2,500
pre-ordered digital telescopes. This will create the world’s largest network of
citizen astronomers, each of whom will be able to engage in an unprecedented
level of collaboration with professional, amateur, and even novice astronomers
conducting worldwide observation campaigns—including large institutional
exoplanetary projects such as TESS, PLATO and JWST.
“The Unistellar eVscope has demonstrated that it
is both a breathtaking deep-sky observing device and a groundbreaking
scientific tool,” said Laurent Marfisi, Unistellar’s CEO. “By proving that
exoplanet detection is possible with our citizen astronomy network, we are
getting closer to our goal of creating a new and unprecedented level of space
exploration.”
