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But with this mission we want to find the smaller planets. Due to this veil, we can only observe the large oscillations from here, meaning we can only discover the large planets. “If you look at the stars from earth, you’ll see that they always ‘flicker’ a bit: their light is hindered by turbulence in our atmosphere. Why does this need to be done from space? Because the Earth's atmosphere puts a spanner in the works. With PLATO, we will apply this technique on a large scale to weigh, measure and date all visible stars with unprecedented accuracy.” It's one of the few ways to discover something about the internal structure and, subsequently, the life and age of a star. Our Sun also has oscillations of around 5 minutes each. “Each star oscillates because of its internal activity. I’m quite proud of that: there's only a 1% change that your satellite proposal is accepted.”Īnd what Aerts wants to research is asteroseismology: the oscillations of stars. In other words, PLATO literally does what I want (laughs). But more importantly: I was able to define what we will be researching. “We are the first people to get access to the results of PLATO. If you look for less than a year, you might miss the transit of a planet such as Earth, which has an orbital period of one year around the Sun.” Unprecedented accuracyĬonny Aerts has been part of the PLATO mission from the very beginning. “You also have to be willing to look to one side long enough. Over the course of two years, we will monitor hundreds of thousands of stars, and we hope to spot around 5,000 exoplanets.” We will measure these dips in brightness, and with this info, we’ll be able to categorise stars and planets based on age and size. In doing so, it temporarily dims the apparent brightness of the star. “During such a transit, the planet blocks a fraction of the light of its sun. The goal is to spot ‘transits’: the moment when a planet passes between us and its parent star. To do this, the satellite will use a battery of 26 cameras – that KU Leuven is helping to develop – to scan a large part of the southern skies for a year, after which it will turn to the northern skies for a year. The PLATO satellite will build an entire catalogue, creating a bit of order in the zoo of planets that is the universe. “Habitable primarily means that the planet orbits its parent star in the habitable zone – not too hot, not too cold – and has an appropriate density – no gas, for example.” Professor Conny Aerts: “With PLATO, we want to find exoplanets – planets outside of our solar system – that are sufficiently similar to our earth to allow for life to exist.” | © KU Leuven – Rob Stevens PLATO will specifically look for ‘earths’. Most of them, however, are giant gas planets and, thus, unfit for life as we know it.
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Today, there are over 4,000 known exoplanets. “With PLATO, we want to find exoplanets – planets outside of our solar system – that are sufficiently similar to our earth to allow for life to exist”, says Aerts. In 2026, this space mission will start looking for a second planet Earth, to sum it up in ambitious terms. Professor Conny Aerts of the Institute of Astronomy is the Belgian Principal Investigator (B-PI) of PLATO. Among other things, KU Leuven is responsible for the simulator, and the assembly and testing of 26 cameras Maps potentially habitable exoplanets and their parent starsĬonny Aerts is co-inventor and Belgian Principal Investigator. Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars