Related papers: CoRoT: harvest of the exoplanet program
The search for extrasolar rocky planets has already found the first transiting rocky super-Earth, Corot 7b, with a surface temperature that allows for magma oceans. Here we ask if we could distinguish rocky planets with recent major…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
We measure the angle between the planetary orbit and the stellar rotation axis in the transiting planetary system CoRoT-1, with new HIRES/Keck and FORS/VLT high-accuracy photometry. The data indicate a highly tilted system, with a projected…
A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. But the invitation can only be accepted if the host star is bright enough for precise measurements of its flux…
With the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planetary system back to 1999, a great number of projects started to hunt for other similar systems. Because of the incidence rate of such systems was unknown and the length of the…
The successful launch of the CoRoT (COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) satellite opens a new era in asteroseismology. The space photometry is complemented by high-resolution spectroscopy and multicolour photometry from ground, to…
The mass of CoRoT-7b, the first transiting superearth exoplanet, is still a subject of debate. A wide range of masses have been reported in the literature ranging from as high as 8 M_Earth to as low as 2.3 M_Earth. Although most mass…
In our solar system massive outer planets dominate in terms of both mass and angular momentum, but few such planets are among the more than 4000 currently confirmed exoplanets, and none of these have accurately determined densities. Here I…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…
We present a study of the light curve of the transiting exoplanet CoRoT-2b, aimed at detecting the secondary eclipse and measuring its depth. The data were obtained with the CoRoT satellite during its first run of more than 140 days. After…
We analyze the surface structure of the planet host star CoRoT-2a using a consistent model for both the `global' (i.e., rotationally modulated) lightcurve and the transit lightcurves, using data provided by the CoRoT mission. Selecting a…
Over 300 extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been detected orbiting nearby stars. We now hope to conduct a census of all planets around nearby stars and to characterize their atmospheres and surfaces with spectroscopy. Rocky planets within…
Observations of giant stars indicate that the frequency of giant planets is much higher for intermediate-mass stars than for solar-like stars. Up to now all known planets of giant stars orbit at relatively far distances from their host…
The space telescope CoRoT searches for transiting extrasolar planets by continuously monitoring the optical flux of thousands of stars in several fields of view. We report the discovery of CoRoT-10b, a giant planet on a highly eccentric…
CoRoT-7b, the first transiting ``superearth'' exoplanet, has a radius of 1.7 R_Earth and a mass of 4.8 M_Earth. Ground-based radial velocity measurements also detected an additional companion with a period of 3.7 days (CoRoT-7c) and a mass…
The detection of Earth-like planets, exocomets or Kuiper belts show that the different components found in the solar system should also be present in other planetary systems. Trojans are one of these components and can be considered fossils…
Co-orbital objects, also known as trojans, are frequently found in simulations of planetary system formation. In these configurations, a planet shares its orbit with other massive bodies. It is still unclear why there have not been any…
We present the preliminary results of the study of an interesting target in the first CoRoT exo-planet field (IRa1): CoRoT 102918586. Its light curve presents additional variability on the top of the eclipses, whose pattern suggests multi-…
[Abridged] Context. The CoRoT space mission has been searching for transiting planets since the end of December 2006. Aims. We aim to investigate the capability of CoRoT to detect small-size transiting planets in short-period orbits, and to…