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Planet hunter readies for launch Space telescope to hunt planets
(1 day later)
A mission that will scour space for Earth-like planets is scheduled for launch on Wednesday. The French-led Corot mission is about to launch from Kazakhstan on a quest to find planets outside our Solar System.
Corot will be the first spacecraft capable of detecting planets outside of the Solar System that are just a few times larger than the Earth. The space telescope will monitor about 120,000 stars for tiny dips in brightness that result from planets passing across their faces.
The French-led multinational mission will also help uncover the secrets of stellar interiors. The multinational mission will also study the stars directly to uncover more about their interior behaviour.
Corot will be launched at 1443 GMT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on the Soyuz-2-1b vehicle. Corot will be lifted into a polar orbit on a Soyuz-2-1b vehicle at 1443 GMT, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
We've been waiting 25 years to get such a mission into space Professor Ian Roxburgh It will be taken into a polar orbit 827km (514 miles) above the Earth where it will survey star fields for approximately 2.5 years. From its vantage point 827km (514 miles) above the Earth, Corot will survey star fields for approximately 2.5 years.
The mission is led by the French space agency, Cnes, which is working with six international partners: European Space Agency (Esa), Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil. name="story"> The French space agency, Cnes, is working with six international partners: the European Space Agency (Esa), Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil.
"We've been waiting 25 years to get such a mission into space," said Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London, UK, and the Esa member of the Corot scientific committee. href="#map" class="bodl">Click here to see a diagram of the Corot spacecraft
"It will be the first space mission that will be searching for planets around other stars that are of a similar nature to Earth. 'Chance' observation
"We should be able to detect them down to about twice the size of Earth." Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London, UK, is the Esa scientist on the mission.
He added: "We will also be monitoring a substantial number of stars to find out what they are like inside and to see how they evolve over time." "The exciting part of this mission is to look, or to try to find, planets that are similar to the Earth," he told the BBC.
1. 4CCD camera and electronics: captures tiny variations in a star's brightness 2. Baffle: shields telescope lens from light pollution3. Telescope: views the star fields4. Proteus platform: contains communication equipment, temperature controls and direction controls5. Solar panel: the Sun's radiation is a source of power for the satellite Finding a transit will involve a bit luck"That is, they'll be somewhat bigger than the Earth, but they'll be made of rocky material able to sustain an atmosphere, and probably provide the sort of environment in which life could form.
"And of course subsequently, many years downstream, we will have more sophisticated measurements, instruments that will look for signatures of life. But at this stage, we need to understand how often there are planets like the Earth around other stars."
Corot will monitor the brightness of stars, looking for the slight drop in light caused by the transit of a planet.
This is a rare event - it relies on the chance alignment of the star and the planet with Earth. As a consequence, Corot must keep an eye on more than 100,000 stars.
Star tremors
With Corot, astronomers expect to find between 10 and 40 rocky objects slightly larger than Earth, together with tens of new gas giants similar to our Jupiter, in each star field they observe.
Every 150 days, Corot will move to a new field and begin observing again.
Its first target field is towards the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Its next will be in the direction of the constellation Orion.
Corot's instrumentation is also designed to detect the subtle variation in a star's light caused by sound waves rippling across the surface. These waves are the equivalent of seismic waves on the Earth.
By studying these "starquakes", astronomers can gain a detailed insight into the internal conditions of the star.
Corot stands for "Convection Rotation and planetary Transits".
The satellite is the first of a number of spacecraft that will hunt and study distant planets over the next few years.
1. 4CCD camera and electronics: Captures and analyses starlight2. Baffle: Works to shield the telescope from extraneous light3. Telescope: A 30cm mirror; it views the star fields4. Proteus platform: Contains communication equipment, temperature controls and direction controls5. Solar panel: Uses the Sun's radiation to power the satellite
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