COROT planets Options

[ustrax]

"...eclipses that can be detected are “shallower and thus the planets detectable are going to be smaller. If the periods are short enough so that we can see enough eclipses for a given planet (a process called epoch-folding) we are going to be so sensitive that we could see one earth-radii planets.”

From a quick update with Malcolm Fridlund at spacEurope.

[Jyril]

According to the SpacEUROPE blog COROT's sensitivity may be just enough to detect reflected light from an extrasolar planet's surface in a similar manner Spitzer has done... but instead of infrared, it observes in the visible light.

[tacitus]

Anyone know when the COROT guys are going to make their next announcement? Any rumors yet?

Their first was a wonderful tease...

[Rakhir]

A small update was posted yesterday on the CNES website.
http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm#juil2007a

[Del Palmer]

According to the SpacEUROPE blog COROT's sensitivity may be just enough to detect reflected light from an extrasolar planet's surface in a similar manner Spitzer has done... but instead of infrared, it observes in the visible light.

Interesting; thanks for posting this. Spitzer has done both emission and absorption, but reflection?! I guess they must be using IRAC 3.6 microns, as the longer wavelength bands will be swamped by intrinsic emission from the planet. Oh boy, that would be quite an achievement if they can do it. I would hate to be the sucker PI reducing the data for that observation.

[tacitus]

A small update was posted yesterday on the CNES website.
http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm#juil2007a

Thanks for pointing out the update, Rakhir.

The level-0 products delivered by CNES to scientific laboratories, as well as the level-1 data under production at LESIA laboratory, confirm the excellent performances of the instrument. A complete set of twelve thousand exoplanet lights curves, corresponding to one month of observation, has already been generated.

Now, I assume they mean 12,000 light curves from stars that are candidates for hosting exoplanets. 12,000 light curves involving exoplanets in one month would be utterly mind blowing.

Not helping with the anticipation...

[nprev]

Not helping with the anticipation...

Oh, no, not at all! Doesn't sound beyond the pale, though. We really are on the verge of finding out whether planets are more plentiful than stars, if that is indeed the case...the smart money's always been on 'yes'. Mach's Principle may yet prove to be far more powerful than we realize at the local level, although in a quantitative, not qualitative sense...

[ustrax]

A small update was posted yesterday on the CNES website.

Thanks for the update Rakhir.
tacitus,
Here's what I got from Dr. Fridlund (ESA COROT Project Scientist) some days ago, when it was announced the discovery of water by Tinetti and co-workers:
"COROT is progressing according to plan. There will not be any new announcements before we have had time to write a few papers and submit them to the journals so with vacations you are talking about at least 3 months.
We have a lot of exo-candidates that we are beginning to follow up from the ground (I was myself in Tenerife last week and observed one of them). But as I said above it will be some time."

[nprev]

Man...I'm trying to contain irrational exuberance, but boy oh boy oh boy...we might just actually know a thing or two in detail--FINALLY--about how things really are around other stars after all the novels and stories, even sans starships, in a few short years!

[Jyril]

Well, the negative side of the COROT survey is that the search is limited to closely orbiting transiting planets so we get a very biased sample. Which is far better than nothing, of course.

A microlensing planet survey equipped even with a relatively small telescope could find Earth-mass or smaller planets in any orbital distance (including free-floating terrestrial planets)! It could detect every planet of the Solar System except Mercury, which is not massive enough and orbits too close the Sun. The obvious downside is of course that the lensing events are unique and no physical properties of the planets can be studied. But it could give a good sample of planets around very different kinds of stars.

[remcook]

I'm wondering...what would be required for such a "gravity lensing" mission? Could COROT not search for such events (change in radiance of microlensing instead of small dips by transit)?

[cndwrld]

This isn't related to Corot, but it may be of interest to people who are interested in Corot. Venus Express is taking observations of Earth, from Venus, using the Virtis and Spicav spectrometers. The idea is to try and gather a data point regarding what a habitable planet would look like from a distance. Once the technology is available, observations like this may give an idea of what would be best to look for.

Several of these observations have been taken, with more scheduled. It is a low priority thing, and I have no idea when any results may come out of it, but it is an interesting idea and some observation time is being dedicated to it.

[belleraphon1]

All planet lovers

COROT update may be coming next week during the European Planetary Science Conference - August 20-24th.

http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc2007/annotation.html

COROT abstract
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EPSC2007/00...7-J-00316-1.pdf

Craig

[djellison]

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001089/

That's about it - it was more 'CoRoT will be great when we get our ground software finished' than 'Look - Exo-Earth's!'

Doug

[belleraphon1]

Thanks Doug!!

I suspect they are going to keep things pretty close to their chests for a while.... but still an interesring report. And a teaser for what is to come.

Craig