Facts about CoRoT Space Telescope
- 07
Asteroseismology data from CoRoT revealed stellar oscillations in thousands of stars, allowing scientists to determine precise ages and internal structures of distant suns with unprecedented accuracy.
- 06
After a solar panel failure in 2009, CoRoT operated for four additional years using only one functional panel, finally ceasing observations in June 2013 after nearly seven years of exoplanet discovery.
- 05
The French space agency CNES built CoRoT as a collaborative mission with ESA, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, and Germany contributing instruments and funding to the 2.6-ton observatory.
- 04
In 2008, CoRoT discovered CoRoT-7b, a rocky super-Earth exoplanet with a radius only 1.7 times larger than Earth's, marking the first confirmed detection of a terrestrial-type world beyond our solar system.
- 03
CoRoT's 27-centimeter telescope primary mirror was significantly smaller than contemporaneous space observatories, yet its wide 2.7-degree field of view enabled simultaneous monitoring of thousands of stars.
- 02
Between 2006 and 2013, the CoRoT Space Telescope observed over 163,000 stars and discovered 32 confirmed exoplanets using its pioneering transit photometry method.
- 01
Launched in December 2006, the CoRoT Space Telescope detected its first exoplanet in May 2007, discovering a Jupiter-sized world orbiting star HD 189733.