RoboNet: Difference between revisions

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{{Unreferenced|date=October 2009}}

RoboNet-1.0 was a prototype global network of UK-built 2m2-metre robotic telescopes, the largest of their kind in the world, comprising the [[Liverpool Telescope]] on La Palma (Canary Islands), the [[Faulkes Telescope North]] on Maui (Hawaii), and the [[Faulkes Telescope South]] in Australia, managed by a consortium of 10ten UK universities under the lead of [[Liverpool John Moores University]]. For the technological aims of integrating a global network to act effectively as a single instrument, and maximizing the scientific return by applying the newest developments in [[e-Science]], RoboNet adopted the intelligent-agent architecture devised and maintained by the [[eSTAR]] project.

effectively as a single instrument, and maximizing the scientific return by applying the newest developments in [[e-Science]], RoboNet adopted the intelligent-agent architecture devised and maintained by the [[eSTAR]] project.

With the flexible scheduling and short response time of robotic telescopes being ideal for [[time-___domain astronomy]], RoboNet-1.0 had two major science goals that critically depend on these requirements: the determination of origin and nature of [[gamma-ray bursts]], and the detection of cool [[extra-solar planets]] by means of [[gravitational microlensing]].

Apart from their science use, the telecopestelescopes forming the RoboNet-1.0 have also been made available for two educational programmes, namely the [[Faulkes Telescope Project]] and the [[National Schools Observatory|National Schools‘ Observatory]].

The RoboNet microlensing programme, led by the [[University of St Andrews]], engages in a common campaign with the [[Probing Lensing Anomalies Network|PLANET]] collaboration since 2005.

With the official end of RoboNet-1.0 in October 2007, and the earlier acquisition of the two [[Faulkes Telescopes]] by [[Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope|Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network]], the microlensing programme is carried on as RoboNet-II. From 2008, RoboNet-II will make use of the expert system for microlensing target selection

that is being provided by the [[Automated Robotic Terrestrial Exoplanet Microlensing Search]] (ARTEMiS). RoboNet-II aims at obtaining a first census of cool terrestrial exoplanets[[exoplanet]]s and competes for the first detection of an exoplanet of Earth mass or below.

== Research highlights ==

RoboNet data so far contributed to the detection of five [[extra-solar planets]] (in the order of announcement of their discovery)

* [[OGLE-2005-BLG-071L]]b

* [[OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb]] (the most Earth-like planet at the time of its discovery)

* [[OGLE-2005-BLG-169L]]b

* [[OGLE-2006-BLG-109L]]b and [[OGLE-2006-BLG-109L]]c109Lc (a pair similar to Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar system)

==References==

{{reflistReflist}}

==External links==