The mission that will allow Europe to become a leader in the search for potentially habitable exoplanets is underway. That is to say: more or less the same size, mass and gravity as the Earth and, of course, in the habitable zone of its star , with liquid water on its surface. It is the space mission Planetary transits and stellar oscillations, which has just been approved by the European Space Agenda (ESA), and its launch will take place in 2023 .
PLATO is a sophisticated instrument made up of 26 small telescopes, of which a Spanish team will manufacture “a substantial technical part” . This is what Rafael Garrido , a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), who participates in the mission, has expressed for Very Interesting. Specifically, the Spanish team will manufacture the data processing center on board , which is of considerable technical difficulty, and the base that will hold the 26 telescopes . The latter will be manufactured in Germany.
According to Garrido, PLATO will offer an accuracy never before achieved , observing a portion of the sky 7 or 8 times the size of the Moon . “We calculate that we will find the order of 10 to 15 similar planets on Earth in a period of 3 years “, says the researcher.
The PLATO mission will add important innovations to other planet-seeking space missions, surpassing the technology of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission . In addition to detecting planets by measuring the dimming they cause as they pass in front of the star, PLATO will be able to determine which stars have planets and which do not , by measuring the stellar oscillations produced by the movement of gas within them. A technique called astroseismology.
“The main novelty of this instrument is that it will be able to capture very subtle variations of the star . Thus we will be able to deduce its internal structure to know which ones have planetary systems that may contain ex-earths”, explained Garrido to Muy Interesante. “So we can find out why some stars have planets and others don’t.”
Spanish engineering, leader in space technology
The PLATO mission is not the first to include Spanish technology to advance knowledge of the stars in the cosmic environment of our solar system. The Cármenes spectrograph is an instrument that offers a unique sensitivity in the variations of the stars: infrared light, invisible to the human eye.
“There is an important bias when it comes to detecting stars, and it is the radial velocity technique. This technique is only used to detect solar stars , that is, with a mass very similar to our Sun, which is a medium-sized star. Cármenes spectrograph , on the other hand, makes it possible to detect infrared light from variations in brown dwarfs, which are stars with a mass much smaller than that of our Sun, “explained Garrido to Muy Interesante.
Targeting non-solar stars , with masses smaller or larger than our Sun, would allow us to expand the search territory for habitable planets. In our solar system the habitable zone is defined by years of distance. That is to say, a few years later and we pass to an uninhabitable zone, in which it is not possible to find liquid water nor, probably, the possibility of life. On the other hand, “in the case of brown dwarfs, the habitable zone could vary in a matter of days or even hours away from the planet with respect to the star”, explained Garrido.
Picture:
Artist’s impression of ESA’s PLATO space telescope observing exotic new worlds – a planetary system with gas giant planets and Earth-like planets – and several distant stars with planets orbiting them. Credits: DLR (Susanne Pieth).
