Discovering and Characterizing extra-solar planets with the next generation transit survey.

With over 5000 extra-solar planets now known, a complete census of exoplanetary types and systems is well underway, from hot Jupiters to cool rocky worlds.

Transiting systems are key because a well-constrained orbital inclination allows for the precise determination of the mass, radius and thereby bulk composition of the transiting planet.

A transiting planet can also potentially have its atmospheric composition investigated by space-based telescopes such as JWST and, at the end of this decade, ESA's Ariel mission.

Today, the principle transiting exoplanet discovery machines are NASA's TESS satellite and, from the ground, the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS, ngtransits.org).