• DOI:10.1117/12.459816
• Corpus ID: 53343235

The Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST)

@inproceedings{Bennett2002TheGE,
  title={The Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST)},
  author={David P. Bennett and J. M. Bally and Ian A. Bond and Edward Cheng and K. H. Cook and Drake L. Deming and Peter M. Garnavich and Kim Griest and David C. Jewitt and Nick Kaiser and Tod R. Lauer and J. L. Lunine and Gerard Anthony Luppino and John C. Mather and Dante Minniti and Stanton J. Peale and Sun Hong Rhie and Jason D. Rhodes and Jean Schneider and George Sonneborn and Robert Stevenson and Christopher W. Stubbs and Domenick J. Tenerelli and Neville J. Woolf and Phillip Yock},
  booktitle={SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation},
  year={2002}
}

• D. Bennett, J. Bally, +22 authors Phillip Yock
• Published in
  SPIE Astronomical Telescopes…
  20 September 2002
• Physics, Geology

The Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST) will observe a 2 square degree field in the Galactic bulge to search for extra-solar planets using a gravitational lensing technique. This gravitational lensing technique is the only method employing currently available technology that can detect Earth-mass planets at high signal-to-noise, and can measure the abundance of terrestrial planets as a function of Galactic position. GEST's sensitivity extends down to the mass of Mars, and it can detect hundreds of terrestrial planets with semi-major axes ranging from 0.7 AU to infinity. GEST will be the first truly comprehensive survey of the Galaxy for planets like those in our own Solar System.