The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
This is the light-curve of the parent star of COROT-exo-2b.
The observation was carried out for 140 days. The light-curve contains 78 passages of the planet in front of the star. This is a record, compared to previous (ground-based) observations where transits sometimes take place in the daytime and are impossible to observe.
The photometric precision obtained in this light-curve is also without precedence, and remains constant during the whole sequence. It reaches 160 parts per million in an integration time of 2.5 minutes – a value impossible to obtain with any ground-based instrument. The light-curve also contains much information about the star itself. It shows periodic modulations, probably the result of different rotational velocities at different latitudes of the star.
This is another nice example of COROT’s superior performance and demonstrates the impact that this mission will have on our understanding of stellar activity and its connection to extrasolar planets.