La mission spatiale CoRoT au musée de l’air et de l’espace
A French idea, the space telescope CoRoT was launched on the 27th of December, 2006. It was created under the project management of the CNES, and under the scientific leadership of the Observatoire de Paris, which heads the scientific committee composed of many French and foreign laboratories. It constitutes a scientific milestone.
This was the first time that a satellite was able to monitor continuously, for extended periods of time and with high precision, the changes in the brightness of stars. It has a double objective : to hunt exoplanets, and to probe the internal structure of stars from space.
In orbit now for over six years, it has confirmed all the original expectations, and has opened the door to new worlds.
Its discoveries are countless, and some are truly unique : detection of the smallest exoplanet known up to then, confirmation of the first terrestrial type exoplanet around a star rather like our Sun – to date, it has definitely found 32 planets, and about a hundred others are in the process of being confirmed -, a capability to « see » very distant stellar populations at the limits of our galaxy …
Among the scientists directly involved in the CoRoT mission, are Annie Baglin, science leader and commisioner of the exhibition, and the scientific mediators of the Bourget Air and Space Museum ; they have worked togetherr to show the general public how CoRoT is challenging our understanding of the Universe.