* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: PLATO mission

Blobrana · L

Plato planet-hunter in pole position

A telescope to find thousands of planets beyond our Solar System is the hot favourite for selection as Europe's next medium-class science mission.
Known as Plato, the concept was chosen by an expert panel as the standout candidate in a competition run by the European Space Agency (Esa).
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Blobrana · L

Title: The PLATO mission concept
Authors: Roxburgh, Ian; Catala, Claude; The Plato Consortium

PLATO is a project for a future space mission that is intended to be submitted in response to the upcoming ESA "Cosmic Vision" announcement of opportunity. The science goal of PLATO is to provide a solid observational basis to understand the formation and evolution of stars and their planetary systems. This goal will be achieved by determining statistically the distribution of sizes and orbits of exoplanets, down to sub-earth sized planets and up to orbits at several AU, and the properties of their parent stars through asteroseismology. The observational concept of PLATO is based on ultra-high precision photometry from space.
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