ESA will launch an exoplanet hunting satellite next October-November. It will be aboard a Russian Soyuz vector as a second payload launched from the Kourou base. Its name will be Cheops.Tullio

Thanks Tullio ^^

ESA's CHEOPS exoplanet observatory cleared for flight
https://newatlas.com/cheops-exoplanet-flight-ready/59091/
http://sci.esa.int/cheops/

I'd be a fool not to add this to my reading list, Chris :)

Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man, says that hope springs eternal, but also declares the species of man to be a "fool", absent of knowledge and plagued by "ignorance" in spite of all the progress achieved through science.

---

Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

To me it seems after "skimming" the link given by Pierre, then we at last found some haystacks and now will start beginning look for needles.

CHEOPS - CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite - is the first mission dedicated to searching for exoplanetary transits by performing ultra-high precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets.
The mission's main science goals are to measure the bulk density of super-Earths and Neptunes orbiting bright stars and provide suitable targets for future in-depth characterisation studies of exoplanets in these mass and size ranges.
And provide unique targets for future ground- and space-based spectroscopic facilities such as the E-ELT Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).
In particular, CHEOPS will be able to identify planets that are more likely to have a thin envelope, which are prime targets for future habitability studies.

http://sci.esa.int/cheops/54031-objectives/

Welcome to the boards, cania:)

1+

---

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Tess finds another.

NASA's TESS mission spots Earth-size exoplanet

NASA's planet-hunting TESS mission has found its first Earth-size exoplanet in a star system only 53 light-years from Earth. Another exoplanet, a warm mini-Neptune, was found in the same system.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/world/nasa-tess-earth-sized-exoplanet-scn/index.html

---

At that orbital period it must be very close to it's star and therefore hotter than Mercury is in our Solar system. I suspect that most stars have planets. Finding one should not be front-page news anymore. What we need to find is an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone with all of the requirements for supporting and sustaining life. I don't know if we can even find an earth-like planet at all in a habitable zone with the equipment we have today? Any comments ??

I don't know if we can even find an earth-like planet at all in a habitable zone with the equipment we have today? Any comments ??

I think Kepler already did found one in 2014.

Kepler-186f is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Kepler-186,[4][5][6] about 582 light-years (178.5 parsecs, or nearly 5.298×1015 km) from the Earth.[1] It is the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discovered in the habitable zone of another star.

Now TESS found its first earth sized planet but not in the habitable zone.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1567/discovery-alert-tess-finds-its-first-earth-sized-planet/
But I guess TESS will find some planet like our earth eventually.

Eighteen Earth-sized exoplanets discovered
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-eighteen-earth-sized-exoplanets.html

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), the Georg August University of Göttingen, and the Sonneberg Observatory have discovered 18 Earth-sized planets beyond the solar system. The worlds are so small that previous surveys had overlooked them. One of them is one of the smallest known so far; another one could offer conditions friendly to life. The researchers re-analyzed a part of the data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope with a new and more sensitive method that they developed. The team estimates that their new method has the potential of finding more than 100 additional exoplanets in the Kepler mission's entire data set. The scientists describe their results in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

---

The low density of some exoplanets is confirmed
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-density-exoplanets.html

The Kepler mission and its extension, called K2, discovered thousands of exoplanets. It detected them using the transit technique, measuring the dip in light intensity whenever an orbiting planet moved across the face of its host star as viewed from Earth. Transits can not only measure the orbital period, they often can determine the size of the exoplanet from the detailed depth and shape of its transit curve and the host star's properties. The transit method, however, does not measure the mass of the planet. The radial velocity method, by contrast, which measures the wobble of a host star under the gravitational pull of an orbiting exoplanet, allows for the measurement of its mass. Knowing a planet's radius and mass allows for the determination of its average density, and hence clues to its composition.

---

Gas giant planets with half the density of Saturn are hard to understand. Even if they had no small rocky core, as Saturn is thought to have, this apparently wouldn't reduce their overall density by much. What could such planets be made of, that allows them to be so low in density? Saturn is made of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements.

Scientist develops novel algorithm to aid search for exoplanets
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-scientist-algorithm-aid-exoplanets.html

Inspired by movie streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu, a Southwest Research Institute scientist developed a technique to look for stars likely to host giant, Jupiter-sized planets outside of our solar system. She developed an algorithm to identify stars likely to host giant exoplanets, based on the composition of stars known to have planets.

---

Tess finds another.

NASA’s TESS Mission Finds Its Smallest Planet Yet
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-s-tess-mission-finds-its-smallest-planet-yet


NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a world between the sizes of Mars and Earth orbiting a bright, cool, nearby star. The planet, called L 98-59b, marks the tiniest discovered by TESS to date.

Two other worlds orbit the same star. While all three planets’ sizes are known, further study with other telescopes will be needed to determine if they have atmospheres and, if so, which gases are present. The L 98-59 worlds nearly double the number of small exoplanets — that is, planets beyond our solar system — that have the best potential for this kind of follow-up.

---

NASA's TESS mission finds 'missing link' planets
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-nasa-tess-mission-link-planets.html

NASA's newest planet-hunting satellite has discovered a type of planet missing from our own solar system.

Launched in 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has found three new worlds around a neighboring star. Stephen Kane, a UC Riverside associate professor of planetary astrophysics, says the new star system, called TESS Object of Interest, or TOI-270, is exactly what the satellite was designed to find.

---

900 light years away.

Hubble Uncovers a ‘Heavy Metal’ Exoplanet Shaped Like a Football
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/hubble-uncovers-a-heavy-metal-exoplanet-shaped-like-a-football

How can a planet be "hotter than hot?" The answer is when heavy metals are detected escaping from the planet's atmosphere, instead of condensing into clouds.

Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal magnesium and iron gas streaming from the strange world outside our solar system known as WASP-121b. The observations represent the first time that so-called "heavy metals"—elements heavier than hydrogen and helium—have been spotted escaping from a hot Jupiter, a large, gaseous exoplanet very close to its star.

Normally, hot Jupiter-sized planets are still cool enough inside to condense heavier elements such as magnesium and iron into clouds.

---

Strange giant planet 'unlike any other' discovered
https://www.foxnews.com/science/strange-giant-planet-discovered

Astronomers have spotted a giant exoplanet that they say is unlike any other.

Planet HR 5183 b has three times the mass of Jupiter and travels on an incredibly long, egg-shaped path around its star, according to Caltech, which led the research. The planet takes 45 to 100 years to complete its orbit, Caltech noted in a statement.

thoughts?

---

Thread Closed

---