Switzerland in pole position in ESA’s new mission

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) PLATO, the largest European exoplanet research mission, was adopted on 20 June 2017 by the European Space Agency at the ESA Scientific Programs Committee meeting. The Universities of Bern and Geneva are heavily involved in this mission, which should enable astronomers to discover and characterize planets the size of the Earth and the "super 'Earths" that orbit around solar type stars in their habitable zone. PLATO ( PLAnetary Transits and Oscillation of stars ), the largest European exoplanet research mission, was adopted today by the European Space Agency at the ESA Scientific Programs Committee meeting. Switzerland, through the Universities of Bern and Geneva, is heavily involved in this mission, which should enable astronomers to discover and characterize planets the size of the Earth and the "super -Earths" that orbit around solar type stars in their habitable zone. Thanks to the twenty-six 12cm diameter small telescopes mounted on the satellite, PLATO will scrutinize about a million stars distributed on half the sky. "We will thus know which planets look most similar to the earth and on which it will be necessary to concentrate on for the detection of life. In a way PLATO will determine VIPs (Very Important Planets) for our future research", said Willy Benz, professor of astronomy at the Center of Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern.