|
|
COROT sees first light!   In the night between 17 and 18 January 2007, the protective cover of the COROT telescope has been successfully opened, and COROT has seen for the first time light coming from stars.
The first light detected by 30-centimetre COROT telescope comes from the constellation of the Unicorn near Orion, the great ‘hunter’ whose imposing silhouette stands out in the winter nights.  After its launch in December 2006, COROT will be placed by a Soyuz launcher in a polar circular orbit around Earth at an altitude of 896 kilometres. This orbit that will allow for continuous observations of two large and opposite regions in the sky for more than 150 days each.
The reason for the oppositely sited regions is that, because of the Earth’s movement around the Sun, the sun’s rays start to interfere with the observations after 150 days. COROT then rotates by 180 degrees and start observing the other region. Note to editors  COROT was successfully launched on a Souyz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 27 December 2006. Release date: 21 May 2008 |