ESA's CHEOPS satellite to hunt transits of suspected exoplanets
Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - 06:30
in Astronomy & Space
Just like the Pharaoh Cheops, who ruled the ancient Old Kingdom of Egypt, ESA's CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) could be someday ruling in the field of exoplanet hunting. It will be the first mission dedicated to search for transits by means of ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. "CHEOPS looks at stars that are already known to host planets and attempts to observe transits. I say attempts because its main targets are planets that have been discovered through Doppler techniques," Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick, UK spokesperson for the CHEOPS mission, told astrowatch.net.