WASP-44b
WASP-44b is a closely orbiting Jupiter-sized planet found in the orbit of the sunlike star WASP-44 by the SuperWASP program, which searches for transiting planets that cross in front of their host stars as seen from Earth. After follow-up observations using radial velocity, the planet was confirmed. Use of another telescope at the same observatory detected WASP-44 transiting its star. The planet completes an orbit around its star every two and a half days, and orbits at roughly 0.03 AU from its host star. WASP-44b's discovery was reported by the Royal Astronomical Society in May 2011. Discovery Using the WASP-South station at the South African Astronomical Observatory, the SuperWASP project searched the night sky for potential planets that transited, or crossed in front of, their host stars at a roughly periodic rate. WASP-44 was among the candidates identified as a possible host to a transit event. WASP-44's reclassification as a potential planetary host came about after WASP-South scanned the Cetus constellation between July and November 2009. In combination with later observations using both WASP-South and the SuperWASP-North in the Canary Islands, over 15,755 photometric measurements were collected. A later set of observations between August and November 2010 produced a 6,000