The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS): Operations 2019-2022

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The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a set of 12 identical telescopes situated at Paranal Observatory in Chile - one of the best astronomical sites in the world. NGTS monitors tens of thousands of bright stars at once in order to search for planets orbiting other worlds (exoplaents). These exoplanets are discovered by looking for small dips in the light from the star as the exoplanet passes in front of the star (called "transits"). The telescopes have been operational since 2016, and already have discovered numerous transiting exoplanets, including small exoplanets not previously detectable from ground-based telescopes. In this proposal we request STFC funding to continue to operate the NGTS telescopes over the 2019-2022 period. This is a very exciting period to operate NGTS, as a new NASA spacecraft named "TESS" has been launched as will soon start surveying almost the entire sky for transiting exoplanets. TESS data will be publicly available, and can be used to find transiting exoplanet candidates that can then be confirmed and further characterised by NGTS. This will allow NGTS to discover planets around very bright stars and in longer period orbits than was previously possible. In addition to this, we will also be able to find young planets by conducting a new survey of open clusters.NGTS data will also be useful for other research fields, such as the flaring events from star and the monitoring of planetary debris around white dwarfs.