ESA - COROT - Newly discovered planet could hold water

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Newly discovered planet could hold water

18 March 2010

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Artist's impression of exoplanet around a star

Credits: ESA 2003. Illustration by AOES Medialab

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Artist’s view of COROT, the exoplanet hunter mission led by CNES, with ESA participation. Due for launch at the end of 2006, COROT will be placed on a circular, polar orbit around Earth that will allow for continuous observations of two large and opposite regions in the sky for more than 150 days each.

COROT will use its telescope to monitor closely the changes in a star’s brightness that comes from a planet crossing in front of it. While it is looking at a star, COROT will also be able to detect ‘starquakes’, acoustical waves generated deep inside a star that send ripples across a star’s surface, altering its brightness. The exact nature of the ripples allows astronomers to calculate the star's precise mass, age and chemical composition.

Credits: CNES/D. Ducros

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One of the methods for detecting exoplanets is to look for the drop in brightness they cause when they pass in front of their parent star. Such a celestial alignment is known as a planetary transit.

From Earth, both Mercury and Venus occasionally pass across the front of the Sun. When they do, they look like tiny black dots passing across the bright surface.

Such transits block a tiny fraction of the light that COROT is able to detect.

Credits: CNES

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