HARPS-N is the counterpart for the Northern Hemisphere of the similar HARPS instrument installed on the ESO 3.6 m Telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.[1] It allows for planetary research in the northern sky which hosts the Cygnus and Lyra constellations. In particular it allows for detailed follow up research to Kepler mission planet candidates, which are located in the Cygnus constellation region.
The instrument's main scientific goals are the discovery and characterization of terrestrial super-Earths by combining the measurements using transit photometry and doppler spectroscopy which provide both, the size and mass of the exoplanet. Based on the resulting density, rocky (terrestrial) Super-Earths can be distinguished from gaseous exoplanets.[2]
^Cosentino, Rosario; Lovis, Christophe; Pepe, Francesco; Collier Cameron, Andrew; Latham, David W.; Molinari, Emilio; Udry, Stephane; Bezawada, Naidu; Black, Martin; Born, Andy; Buchschacher, Nicolas; Charbonneau, Dave; Figueira, Pedro; Fleury, Michel; Galli, Alberto; Gallie, Angus; Gao, Xiaofeng; Ghedina, Adriano; Gonzalez, Carlos; Gonzalez, Manuel; Guerra, Jose; Henry, David; Horne, Keith; Hughes, Ian; Kelly, Dennis; Lodi, Marcello; Lunney, David; Maire, Charles; Mayor, Michel; et al. (2012). "Harps-N: the new planet hunter at TNG". In McLean, Ian S; Ramsay, Suzanne K; Takami, Hideki (eds.). Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy IV. Vol. 8446. pp. 84461V. Bibcode:2012SPIE.8446E..1VC. doi:10.1117/12.925738. S2CID125379344. Cosentino et al. 2012, Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 8446, article id. 84461V
^Latham, David W.; HARPS-N Collaboration (2013). "HARPS-N: A New Tool for Characterizing Kepler Planets". American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221. 221: 231.02. Bibcode:2013AAS...22123102L. Latham et al. 2013, American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #221, #231.02
