Australia Telescope National Facility

Joint ATNF/AAO Colloquium by Dr. Chris Tinney

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

<LI> 8 May: <b>Chris Tinney</b> (AAO) --- Joint ATNF/AAO Colloquium <BR>
<em>``The Anglo-Australian Planet Search : 5 years on''</em><BR>
<b>Abstract.</b>
The Anglo-Australian Planet Search started observations on
the AAT in 1999, and has now been running for 4 years. It
has established itself as the Southern Hemisphere's highest
precision Doppler search for planetary companions to
nearby stars. It has to date reported the detection of
6 extra-solar planets, and two brown dwarf candidates, with
the announcement of yet more detections planned in the very
near future. Several of these discoveries have pushed our
understanding of extra-solar planets in new directions - in
particular the detection of the planet around eps Reticulum,
which was the first Jupiter-like planet to be found in a circular
orbit outside the tidal circularisation radius of 0.1a.u. It
point the way to the eventual discovery of Jupiter-like planets
in Jupiter-like orbits within the next 5 years.