French Satellite Hunts for New Worlds

A new French satellite reached orbit Wednesday to begin a hunting of 30 months stops Earth-like worlds around distant stars. The spaceship, call COROT, assumptions, or exoplanets are 1st of a series of robotic ends of test hoped to advance the extrasolar planet study perceivably, particularly those that are resembled the Earth. More than 200 exoplanets has been discovered from 1995, although the majority has been giant of the gas greater than Jupiter, that orbit near by stars of the father. "If we found as soon as a planet rocky, later we can be safe that there are many of them," the scientist this Malcolm Fridlund of the project with the European Space Agency.

The name of COROT is abbreviations modified for the planetary rotation of the convection and transits, that are what the spaceship will look for. Fixing their foot-long telescope to a specific area of the sky by 150 days simultaneously, COROT will be able to detect to cushion slighter of the light of a star caused by the passage of a planet through their face. COROT also will look for starquakes and other associated phenomena the internal star operations, measuring the waves of the energy that undulate by the surfaces of stars, a well-known science like asteroseismology. To study the undulation gives to scientists the penetration in the mass of a star, the age and the chemical composition. "The measures required for both (the studies) are essentially equal - the results of the high precision in how the radiation of a star changes in a certain term," it said to Ian Roxburgh of queen Maria, of the university of London and a collaborator of long term of the COROT science.

The European Space Agency has been using a similar technique for the studies of the sun with the solar observatory and of Heliospheric, or SOHO. The scientists glide to at least point 50 stars for the same studies with COROT. Whereas COROT is the first satellite to take exoplanet-hunts the orbit, it will be far from hard. This NASA of the decade more ahead glides to send an ambitious mission called Kepler to look for Earth-classified planets that they move in orbit around stars in the advisable distances so that the life becomes. Whereas COROT will also look for for rocky worlds, he will need to be near his stars of the father for the detection, a distance that would be probably inhospitable for the life. Europe also has a recordativa letter called Darwin anticipated mission. It would imply a fleet of the spaceship four or five that could take pictures Earth-like from worlds so the scientists can look for samples of the life.