Saturday, October 28, 2006

New Planet Hunter Prepares for Launch

A powerful new instrument for finding extrasolar planets is about to launch: COROT (Convection Rotation and planetary Transits). Developed by the European Space Agency, COROT will search for planets using the transit method; it will be able to detect the slight drop in brightness as a planet moves in front of its parent star. If the observatory performs as expected, it should be able to detect rocky worlds just a few times larger than the Earth. COROT is scheduled to launch in December, 2006.

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