COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-06 19:09:32

COROT was delivered at the start of the new year and is undergoing validation to prepare it for launch in October. This Corot exoplanet mission will use its telescope to monitor closely the changes in a star’s brightness that comes from a planet crossing in front of it. In each field of view there will be one main target star for the asteroseismology as well as up to nine other targets. Simultaneously, it will be recording the brightness of 12,000 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 15.5 for the exo-planet study. The COROT project will contribute to the search for habitable, Earth-like planets around other stars.The mission was first started by the French back in 1996, and later the European members of ESA joined the mission, the Russians will help launch it by Soyuz-Fregat at BaikonurCorot is an astronomy satellite and is part of the CNES/French missions programme and has two scientific goals - to investigate the internal structure of stars by observing their natural oscillation modes, and to seek planets similar to Earth around nearby stars.
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … c&start=20
COROT (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits) is a mission led by the French National Space Agency, CNES. It is a 30-centimetre diameter space telescope designed to detect tiny changes in brightness from nearby stars. Launch is scheduled this year from Russia - occultation method searches for planetary transits when the planet passes in front of its parent star.
COROT has two scientific objectives :
The stellar seismology Central Program
5 fields observed during 150 days each. Each field holds 1 primary target (Spectral types F, G, K or Scuti brighter than mv = 6) and additionnal targets (maximum 9 by field).
Exploratory Program
They are shorter programs (30 days). There will have 5 of them during the mission. They will study stars with magnitude mv < 9 of varied spectral types.
The search for exoplanets (telluric)
Method
Occultation determination.
Simultaneous observation of 12000 stars with a magnitude < 15.5 "
That's a total of 60,000 stars which will be searched throughout the primary mission.
COROT, is an important stepping stone in the European effort to find habitable, Earth-like planets around other stars. ESA joined the mission in October 2000 by agreeing to provide the optics for the telescope and test the payload at its European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-10 14:28:09

The corot handbook
http://corotsol.obspm.fr/web-instrum/payload.param/
Beginning of the COROT satellite validation/integration phase, on 6 January 2006
http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm
the Video
http://corot.oamp.fr/renduhr.avi
COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits (COROT)
Description: The COROT-satellite uses highly accurate photometry in the optical range to achieve two scientific goals: search for extrasolar planets and measure the pulsation of stars to study their interior.
Status: Scheduled to launch in 2006
Facility: European Space Agency

What does COROT stand for?
COnvection, ROtation and Transits.
'Convection' and 'Rotation' refers to the asteroseismic experiments and 'Transits' to the search for extrasolar planets. These two objectives are very different but depend on the same detection technique: the measurement of stellar brightness variations with very high precision.
http://www.iaa.es/corot/preguntasE.html
Corot overview
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120372_index_3_m.html

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-10 18:04:45

more on planet hunting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/life … ting.shtml
http://corot.oamp.fr/pub/F2F3.tex.htm

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-13 02:45:33

Corot will be the first mission capable of detecting rocky planets outside our Solar System.
http://www.euronews.net/create_html.php … pace&lng=1
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMISENVGJE_index_0.html
EuroNews takes a closer look at this 30-centimetre diameter space telescope

EuroLauncher · 2006-08-02 16:43:05

Animation of a transiting planet

http://www.iaa.es/corot/transitanimE.html

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-12-06 08:41:08

It's getting ready for launch

any more news on NASA's TPF project ?

EuroLauncher · 2006-12-24 21:22:48

launch on the 27th

cIclops · 2006-12-28 04:56:54

COROT on its way (27 December 2006)

COROT was launched by a Soyuz-Fregat from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 15:23 CET.

COROT Homepage

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-12-28 20:52:41

COROT on its way (27 December 2006)
COROT was launched by a Soyuz-Fregat from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 15:23 CET.
COROT Homepage

Thanks for the news Ciclops

Here's more info

Exoplanet detection capability
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305159
COROT has the capacity to detect numerous exoplanets, not only Jupiter and Uranus-class ones, but also hot terrestrial planets, if they exist. We show that small exoplanets should be mainly gathered around 14-15th magnitude K2-M2 dwarfs and giant exoplanets around 15-16th magnitude F7-G2 dwarfs.

cIclops · 2007-02-10 03:04:57

p5764_c3e2dc7b4e46d45f0dc2c5a425cb8ab6champ_moyen_bleu_p.jpg
50 stars covering a field of view of 0.25° x 0.25° from COROT

science observations underway

After stabilizing the boresight in fine-pointing mode, using the instrument as a super star tracker, teams at CNES and French national scientific research centre CNRS have acquired the 1st images on COROT’s exoplanet channel.
Early evaluation of data quality enabled COROT mission teams to begin acquiring the 1st science data on 3 February. This phase will continue until the satellite is rotated toward a new star field, a manoeuvre scheduled for 2 April.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2007-05-02 07:57:32

Corot from science blogs

http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/05/corot.php

cIclops · 2007-05-03 14:33:43

COROT discovers its first exoplanet

The first planet detected by COROT, now named ‘COROT-Exo-1b’, is a very hot gas giant, with a radius equal to 1.78 times that of Jupiter. It orbits a yellow dwarf star similar to our Sun with a period of about 1.5 days. ‘COROT-Exo-1b’ is situated roughly 1500 light years from us, in the direction of the constellation Unicorn (Monoceros). Coordinated spectroscopic observations from the ground have also allowed the determination of the mass of the planet, equivalent to about 1.3 Jupiter masses.

EuroLauncher · 2007-10-07 21:37:08

more COROT results in a few weeks time ?

http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2007/10/ … oject.html

cIclops · 2007-11-12 13:48:43

300 days in orbit - 7 Nov 2007

CoRoT has observed 3 carefully selected regions of the sky: an area in the direction of the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros) during 60 days followed by a short (26days) and a very long (150days) pointing in the opposite direction, in the constellation of the Snakes tail (Serpens Cauda).
CoRoT obtains ~light curves~, i.e. it measures the light coming from a very large number of stars with unprecedented precision for a hitherto unheard length of time. During each set of observations more than 12000 light curves have been obtained, with almost uninterrupted data.
It is now clear that CoRoT will instigate a breakthrough in both of the fields of science that it applies to. The scientific impact of CoRoT relies on its three major characteristics never reached before for which the satellite fulfils and surpass its originals specifications:
* the precision with which the satellite is working, which is set by physical laws -- not by the working of the instrument (the data are thus photon noise limited essentially over all magnitude ranges).
* the duration of the observations on the same star
* the continuity of these observations, which have almost no interruption over these very long periods.
And CoRoT finds that essentially every star it observes varies.
* CoRoT is discovering exo-planets at a rate only set by the available resources to follow up the detections,
* CoRoT has detected solar type oscillations in solar type stars at a level so far unprecedented apart for observations of our own Sun,
* CoRoT is observing all kinds of activity on a large domain of frequencies from multi-mode oscillations, signature of erratic superficial motions, to the signature of differential rotation as seen by the different periods of the passage of sunspots at different latitudes.

Planets without end! When Kepler and Gaia start operating there could be ten of thousands of new exoplanets discovered.

EuroLauncher · 2007-12-12 12:10:23

Email from COROT's Project Scientist

Explaining this absence will wait for a future opportunity for now, and much more important than that here are some words to shed some light over the COROT mission.
I've just checked my e-mail and there was one particularly calling my attention coming from...Malcolm Fridlund, COROT's Project Scientist.
After a previous announcement of a press conference to the 10th of this month where results would be released Fridlund reveals that this date has been postponed...but not for long...
We will just have to wait about a week, the upcoming December 20 is the day to stay alert.
According to the mission's happy Project Scientist, there will be in that day's morning, a press conference at the Paris Observatory.
Fridlund also indicates that there will be a simultaneous press release at a time yet to be decided but it will be around noon.
This press event will focus on the release of data to the Co-Investigators that took place yesterday, with the fact that Annie Baglin, COROT's Chief Scientist, has been awarded a french medal, and...drums please...with the first 3 papers that have been already submitted.
Juicy ain't it?
It will worth the wait.
More soon...

EuroLauncher · 2007-12-23 04:47:49

Another 'Hot-Jupiter' massed planet found
that's not exactly special with the number of planets found these days but it shows Corot has lots of potential yet

http://www.physorg.com/news117374095.html

some surprising results on astroseismological data, star vibrations found in 2 sun-like stars

Not much other info given

ESA lives up to its bad PR reputation

cIclops · 2008-05-22 02:55:03

Exoplanet hunt update - 21 May 2008

Two new exoplanets and an unknown celestial object are the latest findings of the COROT mission. These discoveries mean that the mission has now found a total of four new exoplanets.
These results were presented this week at the IAU symposium 253 in Massachusetts, USA.
COROT has now been operating for 510 days, and the mission started observations of its sixth star field at the beginning of May this year. During this observation phase, which will last 5 months, the spacecraft will simultaneously observe 12 000 stars.
The two new planets are gas giants of the hot Jupiter type, which orbit very close to their parent star and tend to have extensive atmospheres because heat from the nearby star gives them energy to expand.
In addition, an oddity dubbed ‘COROT-exo-3b’ has raised particular interest among astronomers. It appears to be something between a brown dwarf, a sub-stellar object without nuclear fusion at its core but with some stellar characteristics, and a planet. Its radius is too small for it to be a super-planet.
If it is a star, it would be among the smallest ever detected. Follow-up observations from the ground have pinned it at 20 Jupiter massses. This makes it twice as dense as the metal Platinum.
Scientists suspect that with the detection of COROT-exo-3b, they might just have discovered the missing link between stars and planets.
COROT has also detected extremely faint signals that, if confirmed, could indicate the existence of another exoplanet, as small as 1.7 times Earth’s radius.
This is an encouraging sign in the delicate and difficult search for small, rocky exoplanets that COROT has been designed for.

Disappointing results.

New Mars Forums

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#1 2006-03-06 19:09:32

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#2 2006-03-10 14:28:09

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#3 2006-03-10 18:04:45

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#4 2006-03-13 02:45:33

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#5 2006-08-02 16:43:05

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#6 2006-12-06 08:41:08

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#7 2006-12-24 21:22:48

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#8 2006-12-28 04:56:54

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#9 2006-12-28 20:52:41

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#10 2007-02-10 03:04:57

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#11 2007-05-02 07:57:32

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#12 2007-05-03 14:33:43

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#13 2007-10-07 21:37:08

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#14 2007-11-12 13:48:43

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#15 2007-12-12 12:10:23

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#16 2007-12-23 04:47:49

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

#17 2008-05-22 02:55:03

Re: COROT - ESA-France exoplanet telescope

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