The last straight line for the CoRoT satellite
1er septembre 2006
The CoRoT satellite has two missions : the search for extrasolar planets by transit and the detection of the stellar oscillations. These oscillations, and in particular their frequencies, inform us about the state of the stellar interior which oscillates. In fact the motion inside stars, COnvection and ROtation have dubbed this satellite... painter of the stellar interiors. The Paris Observatory and in particular the LESIA have played and still play a major rôle in this project both in the technical and scientific domains.
The CoRoT satellite is ready for launching and was completely qualified. The last tests took place at Alcatel Alenia Space in Cannes. The whole operations of integration and test, at the same time of the instruments and satellite proceeded since the beginning of the year without problems and in accordance with the foreseen planning. With a launching before the end of 2006, CoRoT will discover the first Super-Earths close to their star during 2007. Thanks to its large photometric accuracy, CoRoT will observe for the first time (as impulsed by LUTH) small planets that telescopes from the ground cannot detect. These small planets, close to their star, are likely to be numerous and will enlight us on the formation of planetary systems. During 2007, CoRoT will also detect tens of modes of oscillations of which it will measure the parameters with accuracy in several bright stars similar to the Sun. Then it will tackle the statistics of planets and the comparison between the regions of the galactic center and anti-center. From now to 2008 and thanks to follow-up observations from the ground, it will have determined masses and radii of a few tens of planets within less than 1 A.U. of their central star. In seismology, it will determine the seismic properties of a large variety of stars covering various ages, masses and chemical composition.
Figure 1 : The CoRoT satellite at Alcatel Alenia Space in Cannes, during the tests. To know further : http://corot.oamp.fr/ http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/
Contact Annie Baglin (Observatoire de Paris, LESIA & CNRS)
Dernière modification le 4 mars 2013