Eddington (spacecraft)
The Eddington mission was a
Overview
Using a single spacecraft in Earth orbit equipped with four telescopes, Eddington was to examine different regions of the sky for intervals of about two months each.[4] The telescope would observe more than 500 000 stars for a possible transits and collect asteroseismic data for 50 000 stars in a high temporal resolution.[3]
The mission was then planned to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, pointing continuously at one region of the sky for three years. It would measure light from more than 100,000 stars and detect the tiny decrease in light as a planet passes in front of a star.[5]
Eddington was advocated as the culmination of an international attempt to perform
Planned launch
The launch vehicle was to have been a
Expected performance
Eddington was to be a European counterpart to Kepler, expecting to detect thousands of planets of any size and a few tens of terrestrial planets that are potentially habitable.[6] Budget overruns with other ESA missions led to the cancellation of the mission in November 2003,[7] despite strong protests from the scientific community.[8]
See also
- PLATO
- Kepler
References
- ^ "Europe Scaling Back". NASA. 6 November 2003. Archived from the original on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- .
- ^ ESA. 6 November 2003. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- ^ "Lift off for Eddington Mission to look inside the stars and search for planets like Earth". spaceref.com. May 28, 2002. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
- ESA. 23 September 2008. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- Bibcode:2000astro.ph.11143D.
- ^ Cain, Fraser (7 November 2003). "ESA Cancels Eddington". Universe Today. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- ^ "Astronomers protest at plans to cancel planet search mission". Times Higher Education. 7 November 2003. Retrieved 28 February 2016.