The European Space Agency last week launched a new mission to identify planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.
Dedicated to studying bright, nearby stars that are already known to host exoplanets, CHEOPS (CHaracterizing ExOPlanet Satellite) lifted off from French Guiana on Dec. 18.
This is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets.
To find other worlds, scientists have to look for transit—a phenomenon that occurs when a planet passes in front of its star, causing a dip in the star’s brightness.
The first planet found around a Sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b, was announced in 1955; its discoverers, Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for their finding.
Over the past 25 years, astronomers using telescopes on Earth and in space have discovered 4,000 exoplanets around stars near and far—most of which have no counterparts in our Solar System, according to ESA.
NASA’s Kepler space observatory used the transit method to detect more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, most orbiting faint stars 300 to 3,000 light years away. The agency’s new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has been doing the same thing since April 2018.
“CHEOPS will take exoplanet science to a whole new level,” Günther Hasinger, ESA director of science, boasted.
The mission will not focus on searching for new planets, but instead follow up on the hundreds that have already been discovered, in an attempt to measure their sizes with “unprecedented” precision and accuracy.
That data will be combined with existing information on exoplanet masses to determine planet density—a key quantity for studying internal structure and composition.
CHEOPS will be able to reveal details about some planets’ atmosphere, including the presence of clouds, and may even discover previously unknown worlds.
“There are so many interesting exoplanets and we will be following up on several hundred of them, focusing in particular on the smaller planets in the size range between Earth and Neptune,” CHEOPS project scientist Kate Isaak explained. “They seem to be the commonly found planets in our Milky Way galaxy, yet we do not know much about them.
“CHEOPS will help us reveal the mysteries of these fascinating worlds,” she continued, “and take us one step closer to answering one of the most profound questions we humans ponder: Are we alone in the Universe?”
The Soyuz-Fregat launcher carrying CHEOPS will also deliver the Italian Space Agency’s Cosmo-SkyMed second-generation satellite, and three CubeSats—including ESA’s OPS-SAT—into outer space.
More on Geek.com:
- ESA’s Hera Asteroid Deflection Mission Gets Green Light
- NASA Telescope’s ‘Starglasses’ Make It Easier to Spot Exoplanets
- This Animated NASA Video Maps 4,000 Exoplanets in Deep Space
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