Artist's impression of Eddington

The Eddington mission is designed to address two main science goals. The first is to improve our understanding of the structure and evolution of stars by measuring stellar oscillations (this is commonly referred to as asteroseismology); the second, complementary, goal is to detect and characterise habitable planets.

The 'Double Cluster' in Perseus, which is depicted in the background of this image, will be one of the key targets for Eddington, since it contains a mixture of young stars spanning a wide range in mass. (Double cluster image is copyright A. Steere)