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COnvection, ROtation
& planetary Transits
KEY EVENTS 
February 1994 : Kick off of the project study.
December 1996 : Recommandation of the CNES Scientific Programs Committee to engage COROT.
April 1998 : Decision of the CNES to engage the definition phase.
October 2000 : Decision to carry out the project.
June 2001 : Signature of a CNES-ESA cooperation agreement.
February 2002 : Meeting of the partners realizing the instrument.
May 2004 : Instrument Critical Design Review.
April 2005 : Satellite Critical Design Review.
September 2005 : End of the instrument integration.
January 2006 : Start of spacecraft integration and tests.
September 2006 : Flight Acceptance Review.
December 2006 : Successful launch of the satellite.
 
EVENTS
 
    1st international symposium dedicated to the scientific results of CoRoT, february 2-5, 2009 in Paris

For more information (registrations, submissions...)
Abstract Submission on this web site is now opened

 
    CoRoT detects oscillations in 3 distant stars

CNES's COROT spacecraft has turned up 3 distant stars surprisingly similar to our own Sun. The discovery is the subject of an article this week in the prestigious American review Science.
More...

Light curves of the 3 stars observed by COROT
Light curves of the 3 stars observed by COROT. Credits: LESIA.

 
    CoRoT discovers a new stellar oddity

CNES's space telescope has discovered a new object so exotic that astronomers aren't sure whether to call it a planet. Named COROT-Exo-3b, the oddity is about the size of Jupiter, only 20 times more massive.
More...

Corot-Exo-3b planet
COROT-Exo-3b is about the size of Jupiter but much more massive. Credits: OAMP

 
    International Young Astronomers School dedicated to CoRoT took place on October 6-10 2008, at Meudon and at Sèvres.

Detailed information and the presentations are available on Paris Observatory web site

 
    The latest scientific results of CoRoT

CoRoT has now been for more than 575 days orbiting around the Earth. The satellite, the instrument and the ground segment perform very well. Five observations have been already completed. The sixth and current observation which started on April 14th will end in September, after almost 150 days of fixed pointing. In autumn, the programme will continue with two shorter sessions of approximately 25 days each. The latest scientific results are shortly presented below both on the Exoplanet and Seismology programmes.
The results...

 
    Communiqué from the CoRoT Team

The CoRoT team annonced three new discoveries at the IAU (International Astronomical Union) Symposium 253 Boston (may 19-23, 2008) dedicated to planetary transits.

Besides the discovering of two new gas giants, the presentation of a new type of object immediately caused debates in the CoRoT team and between the 200 international astronomers present at the meeting. The estimated characteristics of this object (mass = 20 JupiterM , radius = 0,8 JupiterR), called CoRoT-exo-3b, place it between a brown dwarf and a planet denser than twice Platinum!

CoRoT is not out done on the side of finding small planets, it has picked up signals as small as 5 parts in ten thousand. If it is the transit, the planet's radius would be 1.7 times the radius of the Earth.

Reference...

Links...

For the record: Since 510 days, the CoRoT spacecraft and the telescope are working very well. The mission is operated from the Centre Spatial de Toulouse by the joint work of the Mission Center and the Control Center teams. Orbit correction maneuvers have been realised in april to optimise the future observation fields. The sequence of these operations with the planned ones went perfectly and enabled to begin the observations of the 6th field of view on April 15th. It is the third Run of long duration observation; it will enable to collect 5 month non-stop simultaneous recording of 12000 stars.

 
    CoRoT one year after launch


Light curve for the parent star of CoRoT-exo-2b

The CoRoT satellite (for Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) has completed its first year in Space. It was launched by a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 27 December 2006 and began to collect scientific data on 2 February 2007. What is there to report after more than 300 days of observations?

For more information...

 
    3rd CoRoT-Brasil Workshop in Natal, November 25-28, 2007

  
You will find more pictures of this campaign in the "MEDIA GALLERY" menu

 
    300 days in orbit

CoRoT celebrates its 300 days in orbit, since its launch on december 27th from Baïkonour.

It started to collect scientific data on the February 2nd, and it works in normal scientific operations since 2 April 2007. It just finished its first very long sequence of observation (150 days) towards the region of the galactic centre and has turned towards the anticentre direction in order to keep the Sun in its back on the 15th of October. Operations have been conducted from the centre de Mission in CNES Toulouse. It has then started its new long observation on October 23rd, which will last till next March. More ...

 
    COROT Mission Center Key Point, on 24 July 2007

After an initial observing run towards the galactic anticenter in January and February, then a shorter one of three weeks duration at the end of April towards the center, the COROT mission is now in the middle of its first long duration run of observation. Indeed, the telescope has been pointed since mid-May towards a zone of the galactic center, within Aquila constellation, which it will observe continuously until mid-October.

A progress key point of the COROT mission center activities was held on July 24 at CNES in Toulouse, with all the actors concerned. The objectives of the key point have been achieved successfully, and at this occasion it was raised that :

    The satellite works always remarkably well
    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 lights curves, corresponding to one month of observation, has already been generated.

At the end of October the satellite will be pointed again towards the direction of the galactic anticenter, to start a new long run of observation.

 
    Success of the first COROT satellite observation: First exoplanet and first stellar oscillations, on 3 May 2007

The Corot satellite has been busy carrying out both in-orbit verification and its first scientific observations. The on-board systems are all working at least as well as predicted and in some cases significantly better than expected, which will have an enormous impact on the results of the mission. While, the systematic and scientific evaluation of the results that are streaming in will yet take some time, we can today present some preliminary results that demonstrate the quality of this impressive spacecraft.
Press release for more information


Transit of the first exoplanet as observedd by Corot (Corot – Exo-1b)


Relative light variations of a bright solar type star as observed by Corot. Harmonic analysis shows clearly the seismic signature.

 

Latest Update 07/11/2008
 
NEWS
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2006 Events
2005 Events
2004 Events
Events summary since the beginning of the mission
Agenda
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All the articles since the beginning of the mission