08 THE KNOW
Keele alumnus
helps NASA
discover seven
new planets
Keele University
Astrophysics graduate
Dr Dan Holdsworth
recently worked with
NASA to observe a
new solar system,
and helped identify
seven earth-sized
planets 40 million
light years away.
D
an graduated from Keele University
in January 2016 with a PhD in
Astrophysics. During his studies he
worked with Keele’s Wide Angle Search
for Planets (WASP) and was introduced
to Michael Gillon, the lead researcher
and principal investigator of the new exoplanet
system called TRAPPIST-1.
In June 2016 Dr Holdsworth was contacted by
Dr Gillon to help observe the solar system at
the South African Astronomical Observatory,
which led to the discovery of seven new
planets, of which three are located in a
habitable zone and are most likely to have
liquid water.
Dr Holdsworth, now a postdoctoral research
associate at the University of Central
Lancashire, said: “I was asked to observe
the host star and monitor its brightness.
The brightness of the star dims when the
planets pass in front of it, so we can detect
how big the planets are and how far they
are from the star.