habitable planets around Sunlike stars<\/a>, will blast into space on Europe’s newly innovated Ariane-6 rocket.<\/p>\nThe \u20ac4bn rocket made its maiden flight last week.<\/p>\n
Dr David Brown of the University of Warwick commented: “PLATO’s goal is to search for exoplanets around stars similar to the Sun and at orbital periods long enough for them to be in the habitable zone.<\/p>\n
“One of the main mission objectives is to find another Earth-Sun equivalent pair, but it is also designed to carefully and precisely characterise the exoplanets that it finds (i.e. work out their masses, radii, and bulk density).”<\/p>\n
PLATO: Beyond exoplanet hunting<\/h3>\n PLATO is not just dedicated to finding Earth-like planets; it is also a mission focused on stellar science.<\/p>\n
It employs techniques like asteroseismology, which measures the vibrations and oscillations of stars to determine their masses, radii, and ages.<\/p>\n
Multi-camera system<\/h3>\n Unlike most space telescopes, PLATO is equipped with multiple cameras. One of these, named ArthurEddington after the renowned astronomer and physicist, adds to its unique capabilities.<\/p>\n
The telescope features 24 ‘Normal’ cameras (N-CAMs) and 2 ‘Fast’ cameras (F-CAMs). The N-CAMs are arranged in four groups of six, with each group pointed in the same direction but slightly offset from the others.<\/p>\n
This configuration provides a vast field of view, enhances scientific performance, offers redundancy in case of failures, and helps in identifying false positive signals that could be mistaken for exoplanet transits.<\/p>\n
Exoplanet observation strategy<\/h3>\n PLATO’s observing strategy involves focusing on two regions of the sky for two years each.<\/p>\n
The Southern patch has already been selected, while the Northern patch will be confirmed in the coming years.<\/p>\n
Component development and testing<\/h3>\n Several components of the spacecraft are nearing the end of their manufacturing and calibration processes.<\/p>\n
This includes the UK-developed Front-End Electronics (FEE) for the N-CAMs, created by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.<\/p>\n
These electronics operate the cameras, digitise the images, and transfer the data for onboard processing.<\/p>\n
So far, ten of the final cameras have been built and tested, with the first mounted on the optical bench earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The PLATO space telescope is on track to start searching for Earth-like planets in December 2026. Find out more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":49413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[771],"tags":[3477,24197],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
PLATO telescope to find Earth-like planets from 2026<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n