The CoRoT Satellite:the search for Earth-like planets

PERFORMED BY: JOANA CAROLA AND CATARINA ALVES

CoRoT Satellite

On 27 December 2006, the French space agency

(CNES) and ESA launched the CoRoT satellite to:

study the convection (Co) from the interior of a star;

study the rotation (Ro) of stars;

CoRoT Satellite

detect planetary transits (T) – exoplanets

that pass between Earth and the star;

detect starquakes – acoustical waves

generated deep inside a star that send

ripples across its surface.

27 cm primary mirror;

Camera that takes one picture every 32 seconds;

A very precise photometer (or light meter);

A computer that measures the star´s light.

The satellite is directed at the same spot in the sky

for up to 150 days at a time.

CoRoT Instruments

When a planet in orbit around a star passes between the CoRoT satellite and the star,

it can be detected as a small dip occurring periodically in the star’s light output.

Planetary Transits

This plot shows the transit of the first exoplanet discovered by CoRoT: CoRoT-Exo-1b.

The decrease in the luminosity of the star occurs when the planet passes in front of the star

every 1.51 days. It is a very hot giant planet, similar to Jupiter in mass and size.

Planetary Transits

CoRoT can detect planets that are close to their star and

as small as our own Earth.

At 3 February 2009, CoRoT has found an amazing planet:

COROT-Exo-7b is less than twice the size of Earth;

It orbits a Sun-like star once every 20 hours;

It is located very close to its parent star and has a

high temperature, between 1000 and 1500 °C;

It may be rocky and covered in liquid lava or water vapour.

Small and Rocky Exoplanets

Finding small and rocky (Earth-like) planets

outside our Solar System is important:

to know if our planet is unique;

to understand how life arose on Earth.

Small and Rocky Exoplanets

It is believed that life must be linked to the

presence of liquid water on a rocky planets.

Finding an exoplanet as small as Earth is difficult.

More difficult will be to detect life forms,

especially if they were just bacteria.

Extraterrestrial Life

Extraterrestrial Life

To find life forms in a planet we must analyze its

atmosphere and detect a chemical disequilibrium,

because life changes its environment:

When life originated on Earth, bacteria

produced an overabundance of methane;

When new organisms evolved and produced

oxygen, the methane decreased and

the oxygen increased.

Extraterrestrial Life

The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes detected water and methane on the

atmospheres of the Jupiter-sized exoplanet HD 189733b. However, current

technology is not sufficient to analyze the atmospheres of smaller planets.

Thank you for your time

Referenceshttp://www.scienceinschool.org/2009/issue13/corothttp://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/COROThttp://www.scienceinschool.org/repository/images/issue2exoplanet3_large.jpghttp://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/image/151http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_189733_b