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

下一代凌日巡天（NGTS）是一组12台相同的望远镜，位于智利的帕拉纳天文台——世界上最好的天文观测站之一。NGTS同时监测成千上万颗明亮的恒星，以寻找围绕其他世界（系外行星）运行的行星。这些系外行星是在系外行星经过恒星前方时（称为“凌日”），通过寻找来自恒星的光的小倾角发现的。这些望远镜自2016年开始运行，已经发现了许多凌日系外行星，包括以前无法通过地面望远镜探测到的小型系外行星。在本提案中，我们要求STFC资助在2019-2022年期间继续运行NGTS望远镜。对于运行NGTS来说，这是一个非常激动人心的时期，因为NASA已经发射了一艘名为“TESS”的新航天器，它将很快开始对几乎整个天空进行凌日系外行星的观测。TESS的数据将是公开的，可以用来寻找过境的系外行星候选人，然后可以通过NGTS确认和进一步表征。这将使NGTS能够在非常明亮的恒星周围发现行星，并且在比以前可能的更长的轨道上发现行星。除此之外，我们还可以通过对疏散星团进行新的调查来发现年轻的行星。NGTS的数据也将对其他研究领域有用，比如恒星的耀斑事件和白矮星周围行星碎片的监测。

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.