Talk:COROT

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[edit] Appearance

So what does Corot look like?--Planetary 19:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a nice image on the webpage [1]. I uploaded the image to Wikipedia, but it seems like it will be deleted since the licence is:
You may reproduce any content on this site for non-commercial purposes, provided you cite the source of the information (Copyrights 2006 - © CNES or other source).--Linuxman 17:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I would read that as allowing the use of an image on Wikipedia. I've added another image from that same source, and provided a rationale on the image's page. --dantheox 06:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you're reading it incorrectly. The GFDL license explicitely allows commerical use which is excluded by the above license. I think these pictures are not usable on WP. Awolf002 13:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia really count as commercial use? It's not for profit, and donations are tax-deductible. Unless copyright has a very technical meaning of commercial, it sounds OK to me. --dantheox 17:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Please, read the GFDL. There are commercial web sites that use the full WP content under the GFDL license. For this reason, in my understanding, all parts of WP must comply with GFDL, including the permission to use the content that way. Awolf002 21:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess you're right. I sent an email to some people from the CNES COROT site asking for explicit permission. This article really needs a picture... --dantheox 09:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Why can't ESA be more like NASA and make their stuff public domain? European taxpayers shouldn't have to ask to use what they've already payed for!--Planetary 03:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I received this response from a representative at CNES:

Bonjour,
Sorry but CNES images are available for News and Education use only.
We do not agree the "open source" system developped on Wikipedia
So you cannot use this image.
SD

So looks like a no go. I'll delete the image. Too bad, I guess we'll have to wait until launch and hope that someone with a more liberal license takes a picture. --dantheox 18:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for finding out their position. Yup, time to let that one go... Awolf002 18:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Alright then. I'm not surprised, considering ESA's track record as a space agency.They can't even spell "developed" right! :) --Planetary 21:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Launch date

All the sources given and Spaceflight.com say that launch is on December 21, not 28. What's the right answer? Awolf002 12:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Checked around, and I can't find an update to the CNES page (dated Nov 28, still says launch on 21st) or in other places. Did see a BBC news article dated yesterday [2] which gave a date of the 26th or 27th, but no other news or press releases. Certainly it's not rare for launch dates to be tweaked at the last minute, but we should at least mark a citation needed. Willhsmit 21:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This confusion about the launch date, could it be spillover from the Cold War days? Since it was launched on a Soyuz2 rocket, would that mean that Russians were responible for the launch? During the space race the Soviet Union was secretive about launches and went public only when they were sucessful.--W8IMP 22:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The correct date is 27 December 2006, according to [1]. Timb66 12:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regions of observation

It would be nice to see some explanation of why those two particular main regions of observation were chosen. 62.116.80.106 19:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Outer space, as far as we know is limitless. I would guess that a room full of deep space scientists got together to plan the best route, based on terrestrial and previous mission observations. --W8IMP 23:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The two regions are in the two continuous viewing zones (at the poles of the orbit), and were chosen to have a high density of stars (for exoplanet searches) but not too high (since the photometry is less precise in crowded fields due to overlapping stellar images). More info is here:[2] Timb66 12:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fireball from deorbit

All of Colorado and surrounding states saw a fireball this morning, http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10494439/detail.html and several other news stories report. http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20070104.html claims it's likely a deorbiting stage from the Soyuz that launched COROT ... interesting footnote maybe. :)

—Hobart 19:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitely deserves a mention if we can find a better correlating source. According to NORAD, "The 1st Space Control Squadron, located at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado tracked this re-entry from a launch that occurred 27 December 2006." 2006 in spaceflight lists this as the only launch that day. So, that's probably it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When to search for planets?

When will Corot find planets? BlueEarth 19:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I had thought that they would already be reporting some of their "low-hanging fruit" by now -- hot Jupiters that have periods short enough that they've done 3-4 orbits during the first observation run and that are large enough that relatively few orbits are needed for unambiguous detection. However, I'm not sure how frequently the satellite sends down data or how long it takes to process, and they haven't really suggested a clear time line, so it's not clear whether the data is slow in coming, they're being cautious with announcements, or holding off for follow-up observations to put maximum detail in the first releases. Planets with periods of 2-3 months or more will probably need 2 or more yearly observing runs to confirm...same with smaller planets that need more transits for confidence. Willhsmit 23:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • It's the European space agency, give them time. If I know them well, we may get a press release by the end of the year.--Planetary 02:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • COROT is not an ESA mission. — JyriL talk 13:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it is a joint ESA/CNES mission. Timb66 13:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The mission is led by CNES and ESA is only a partner among others.[3] The burden of PR certainly lies on the shoulders of CNES.— JyriL talk 19:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

They have detected a Jupiter sized planet, and the sensitivity is 10 times higher than expected, so Earth sized planets can be found. According to BBC news and New Scientist. Martin Andersen

COROT should start searching for planets at least once per every month. BlueEarth 01:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I totally didn't expect that. Looks like I underestimated them. --Planetary 06:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I've heard there are about a ten thousand possible candidates found during the first month. Undoubtedly vast majority of them are false alarms (red dwarfs, grazing eclipses, blenders etc.). To confirm a planet one needs radial velocity measurements and that requires time. Don't except major announcements in a few months. — JyriL talk 13:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Could someone explain me what they mean with "CoRoT is discovering exo-planets at a rate only set by the available resources to follow up the detections" ? Does that mean that the Data so far collected could "contain" several samples of exoplanets, but that they have to wait in order to analyse the data? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.217.42.162 (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but I recall reading from blogs [4] that Corot has presented several light curves at scientific meetings that were under non-disclosure agreements. Essentially they want to do the follow-up observations from larger ground telescopes to look for radial motion before making announcements of transits, to reduce reporting false positives (and presumably so that other astronomers don't beat them to finding anything exciting in the follow-up results). This blog implies that they have at least a few dozen fairly solid transit detections. Willhsmit (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, that made it much clearer to me! So I guess we'll all soon know what they've detected so far. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.217.26.55 (talk) 19:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hype

This mission is a lot of hype and almost no real results. Last annoucement on 20 december was abount only one planet, and generally we know about two hot jupiters from this mission from beginning of science phase (3 february 2007). Absolutely nothing exceptional and in stark contrast with all hype, teasers and allegedly wonderous preformance. I understand that coughing up results that are sure and real is hard, but then this hype is let-down and misleading, to say at least. --Madcio (talk) 13:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you complaining about the mission or the Wikipedia article? This is not the place to discuss the mission. Talk pages are intended for discussion of the article. If you are aware of criticisms of the COROT project in reliable published sources, you can add information about those criticisms to the article, citing the reliable sources. -- Donald Albury 15:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)