Corot sees first light
The Corot space telescope has successfully started operation. As the European space agency Esa announced yesterday, the protective cover of the telescope opened on the night of January 17th to 18th. Experts are currently calibrating the instrument and preparing it for scientific use, which is scheduled to begin in early February.
The first photo Corot took shows a section of the region around the constellation Unicorn. Researchers carefully aimed the telescope at this part of the sky on January 18. The quality of the recording met the scientists' expectations. The optics seem to work without any problems.
Corot launched on 27. December last year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan). It orbits the earth at an altitude of 900 kilometers in a polar orbit. The telescope is to monitor numerous celestial bodies for fluctuations in brightness over the next few years. Such fluctuations can tell something about the internal structure of stars, but also reveal the existence of exoplanets - planets outside our solar system.
Experts assume that Corot can still detect exoplanets down to a size of two to four Earth radii. The space telescope is expected to detect several hundred such distant worlds. The mission is managed by the French space organization CNES, numerous countries - including Germany - are involved. The Esa as a supranational organization is also on board.
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