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COROT satellite and expanding Russians

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Written by staff

Wednesday, 03 January 2007

COROT
On December 27, the French national space agency's COROT satellite launched from Kazakhstan. Its mission is to detect exoplanets orbiting around other stars and to probe the mysteries of stellar interiors, according to an ESA release.

COROT stands for 'Convection Rotation and planetary Transits'. 'Convection and rotation' refer to the satellite's capability to probe stellar interiors, studying the acoustic waves that ripple across the surface of stars, a technique called asteroseismology.

'Transit' refers to the technique whereby the presence of a planet orbiting a star can be inferred from the dimming starlight caused when the planet passes in front of it. COROT will monitor some 120 000 stars with its 30-centimetre telescope.

In the decade since the first discovery in 1995 of an exoplanet (51 Pegasi b), more than 200 other such planets outside our solar system have been detected using ground-based observatories. The COROT space telescope hopes to find many more during its two-and-a-half-year mission.

Many of the planets COROT will detect are expected to be 'hot Jupiters', gaseous worlds. An unknown percentage of those detected are expected to be rocky planets, maybe just a few times larger than the Earth.

more Russian bases
Meanwhile, the Russians are looking to expand their launch capabilities for the Soyuz 2-1B rocket (the same craft which carried the French COROT satellite into orbit) by building a new launch pad at the European launch center in French Guyana, according to an AFP report.

Work will begin in February, and the first launch is scheduled for 2009.

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