Science & Exploration
Cheops observing programmes
Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.
Eighty percent of the science observing time on Cheops is dedicated to the Guaranteed Time Observing (GTO) programme, defined by the Cheops Science Team and focussed around important themes in current exoplanet research. The remaining twenty percent is made available to the astronomical community worldwide in the form of an ESA-run Guest Observers’ (GO) programme, with proposals selected via a competitive peer-review selection process.
