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Telescope launched to seek out new planets...

 
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Michelle
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:40 pm    Post subject: Telescope launched to seek out new planets... Reply with quote

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20981329-1702,00.html

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Telescope launched to seek out new planets

By Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris

December 28, 2006 06:43am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

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EUROPEAN scientists have launched a satellite to seek out Earth-like planets beyond the solar system and to explore the interior of stars.

The French project, dubbed COROT, is using a telescope capable of detecting planets smaller than those currently known, some maybe just a few times the size of Earth and rocky rather than gaseous.

"Our COROT satellite has been put into orbit today perfectly by a Soyuz rocket," said Yannick d'Escatha, president of the French space agency.

One of the researchers associated with the project spoke to France Info radio before the launch in Kazakhstan.

Claude Catala said: "COROT will be able to find extra-solar planets of all sizes and natures, contrary to what we can do from the ground at the moment.

"We expect to obtain a better vision of planet systems beyond the solar system, about the distribution of planet sizes.

"And finally, it will allow us to estimate the likelihood of there existing planets resembling the Earth in the neighbourhood of the sun or further away in the galaxy."

Planets have been found orbiting stars other than the sun, but they have never been seen. Instead, scientists have deduced they are there based on the stars' "wobble", the result of the gravitational pull of planets revolving around them.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is participating in the COROT project, which will measure the light emitted by a star and detect the drop in brightness caused when a planet passes in front of it.

Like the larger planets found so far, however, these new ones would have to be orbiting close to their star.

ESA said: "Such planets would represent a new, as yet undiscovered, class of world that astronomers believe exists.

"With COROT, astronomers expect to find between 10-40 of them, together with tens of new gas giants."

ESA said COROT would also be used to track sound waves that resonate through a star, creating changes in brightness that should give scientists a glimpse into the interior of the stars themselves.

"These create a 'starquake' that sends ripples across the star's surface, altering its brightness. The exact nature of the ripples allows astronomers to calculate the star's precise mass, age and chemical composition," it said.

In 2008, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was due to launch the first space telescope capable of detecting Earth-sized planets in similar orbits to ours, ESA said.

Additional reporting by Jon Boyle

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