Friday, 1 August, 1997 at 2:30pm

Alan Penny - RAL

"COROT - space mission for asteroseismology and planet hunting"

ABSTRACT: "The French space agency CNES has funded a `petit mission' satellite for launch in 2001 to do stellar photometry studies in asteroseismology and planet hunting. A proposal for UK involvement, in the CCD supply and in the science, is now in the final stages of selection by PPARC in their bilateral space missions funding line. A 25cm telescope in low Earth orbit will continuously stare for five months at a target, move to another target and stare at it. This will be repeated for the 2 - 3 year mission lifetime. One focal plane CCD instrument will do photometry on a 5th magnitude star for asteroseismology. A second focal plane CCD instrument will do photometry in a nearby field on 1 - 2000 stars, looking for those stars whose planet plane is lined up with the Earth so that transits occur and dips in brightness can be detected."