{"id":590777,"date":"2019-03-12T07:41:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=ebf492819fa2699d24cba35c8a11a376"},"modified":"2019-03-12T07:41:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T11:41:00","slug":"cheops-characterising-exoplanets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=590777","title":{"rendered":"CHEOPS &#8211; Characterising Exoplanets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2019\/03\/cheops_-_characterising_exoplanets\/19282369-3-eng-GB\/CHEOPS_-_Characterising_Exoplanets_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThe Characterising Exoplanet Satellite,&nbsp;Cheops, has&nbsp;successfully completed its final testing phase at Airbus Defence and Space Spain, Madrid. The satellite has also passed&nbsp;a very important review that determined it is ready to fly.&nbsp;Cheops will be stored in Madrid for a few&nbsp;months before being shipped&nbsp;to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana; launch is scheduled in the&nbsp;time slot between 15 October and 14 November 2019.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops is ESA\u2019s first mission to focus on exoplanets, or planets beyond our Solar System, orbiting stars other than the Sun. It will make observations of stars the are known to host exoplanets to measure&nbsp;small changes in their brightness due to the transit of the planet across&nbsp;the star&#8217;s disc. Cheops will target in particular stars hosting planets in the&nbsp;Earth-to-Neptune size range. The information will enable precise&nbsp;measurements of the sizes of the orbiting&nbsp;planets to be made: combined&nbsp;with measurements of the planet masses, this will provide an estimate of&nbsp;their mean density \u2013 a first step to&nbsp;characterising planets&nbsp;outside our Solar System.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops paves the way for the next generation of ESA\u2019s exoplanet satellites, with two further missions \u2013&nbsp;Plato&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ariel&nbsp;\u2013 planned for the next decade to tackle&nbsp;different aspects of the evolving field of&nbsp;exoplanet science.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe mission is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland&nbsp;with additional contributions from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,&nbsp;Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain,&nbsp;Sweden, and the United Kingdom. This&nbsp;film contains contributions from Nicola Rando,&nbsp;Cheops&nbsp;Project Manager,&nbsp;ESA; and Kate Isaak,&nbsp;Cheops&nbsp;Project&nbsp;Scientist, ESA.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMore about Cheops:&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/\">http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2019\/03\/cheops_-_characterising_exoplanets\/19282369-3-eng-GB\/CHEOPS_-_Characterising_Exoplanets_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\"><\/p>\n<p>\nThe Characterising Exoplanet Satellite,&nbsp;Cheops, has&nbsp;successfully completed its final testing phase at Airbus Defence and Space Spain, Madrid. The satellite has also passed&nbsp;a very important review that determined it is ready to fly.&nbsp;Cheops will be stored in Madrid for a few&nbsp;months before being shipped&nbsp;to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana; launch is scheduled in the&nbsp;time slot between 15 October and 14 November 2019.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops is ESA&rsquo;s first mission to focus on exoplanets, or planets beyond our Solar System, orbiting stars other than the Sun. It will make observations of stars the are known to host exoplanets to measure&nbsp;small changes in their brightness due to the transit of the planet across&nbsp;the star&#8217;s disc. Cheops will target in particular stars hosting planets in the&nbsp;Earth-to-Neptune size range. The information will enable precise&nbsp;measurements of the sizes of the orbiting&nbsp;planets to be made: combined&nbsp;with measurements of the planet masses, this will provide an estimate of&nbsp;their mean density &ndash; a first step to&nbsp;characterising planets&nbsp;outside our Solar System.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops paves the way for the next generation of ESA&rsquo;s exoplanet satellites, with two further missions &ndash;&nbsp;Plato&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ariel&nbsp;&ndash; planned for the next decade to tackle&nbsp;different aspects of the evolving field of&nbsp;exoplanet science.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe mission is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland&nbsp;with additional contributions from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,&nbsp;Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain,&nbsp;Sweden, and the United Kingdom. This&nbsp;film contains contributions from Nicola Rando,&nbsp;Cheops&nbsp;Project Manager,&nbsp;ESA; and Kate Isaak,&nbsp;Cheops&nbsp;Project&nbsp;Scientist, ESA.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMore about Cheops:&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/\">http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590778,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590777\/revisions\/590778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}