A cold rocky Earth sized planet named Speculoos-3b was spotted by the Speculoos (Search for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) global network of robotic telescopes.
There is another star called Trappist-1. Probably detected by some drunkards out one night.
You just cannot make it up! 🙂
by electricalkitten
4 comments
shouldn’t it be called Biscoff?
Actually this is the result of some pretty cool science, and those bright minds also have a knack for coming up with pretty creative acronyms in their project proposals. I’ve been able to attend a presentation at the European Commission by the head researcher (and had brought a kilo of r/hasselt speculoos).
Astronomers are great at acronyms. There is an instrument called SAURON (Spectroscopic Areal Unit for Research on Optical Nebulae) and many astronomers are looking for a bunch of MACHOs (MAssive Compact Halo Objects).
There is also:
The Attempt To Observe Outer-planets In Non-single-stellar Environments (TATOOINE)
H_0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL’s Wellspring (H0LiCOW)
And a bunch of Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs)
Trappist-1 was discovered by a Belgian, from wiki:
Een team van astronomen, geleid door Michaël Gillon van het Institut d’Astrophysique et Géophysique te Luik, België, gebruikte de telescoopTransiting planets and planetesimals small telescope (TRAPPIST) van het La Silla-observatorium in de Atacamawoestijn in Chili om de ster en haar planeten te observeren.