The CoRoT space mission
The CoRoT - Convection Rotation & planetary Transits - space telescope is an astronomy mission led by the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in association with a number of international partners including the European Space Agency (ESA). The mission has two main scientific goals: the search for extrasolar planets, through the planetary transit method, and the study of stellar interiors and stellar evolution, through the analysis of stellar oscillations. These goals require an instrument capable of detecting tiny variations in the brightness of stars. To that end, the satellite carries a 27-cm afocal telescope equipped with a camera with 4 CCD detectors, and will observe 5 regions of the sky, each for 150 consecutive days. These observations will be complemented by a number of shorter observational sequences, lasting 20 days each, which aim to optimize the scientific return of the mission.
  CoRoT satellite main characteristics:
For more information see:
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