CHEOPS – CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite

CHEOPS is on a fascinating cosmological journey of exploration of the extrasolar world!

Mission Objective

To determine the size of known extrasolar planets and the size of their exo-moons by measuring the star’s brightness.

Mission Significance

This allows the estimation of mass, density, composition, and formation of these stars!

• The planet’s density reveals crucial information about its internal composition and structure!
• For example, using a planet’s density, we might determine whether the planet’s primary composition is rocky, gaseous, or potentially has substantial water bodies.
• The leading scientists of this project anticipate that these thoroughly studied transiting exoplanets will become prominent candidates for upcoming observatories.

Source: ESA

Engineering Challenges

CHEOPS encounters multiple engineering challenges. Those include attaining exceptional photometric stability, accurate pointing, reducing stray light to detect faint transits. Also, ensuring thermal stability across the telescope, decreasing detector noise, and operating dependably within a compact, lightweight satellite platform.
Detecting exoplanet transits involves measuring tiny brightness fluctuations—sometimes as small as 20 parts per million—requiring highly stable optics, detectors, and spacecraft orientation.

Instrument Characteristics

• Size: 1.5m
• Mass: 280kg
• Field of view: 19X19 arcmin

Methodology Overview:

• By absorbing bright stars that are already known to host planets.
•  It specifies in the super-Earth to Neptune size range.
• It will produce precise measurements of the sizes of the exoplanets. The incoming data from CHEOPS helps to calculate their density.

Acktar’s Solution

Acktar coated the focal plane assembly of CHEOPS with Fractal Black. This low reflecting black coating prevents the contamination of the faint signals the mission is designed to measure by suppressing stray light.

The most recent discovery of CHEOPS – the orbital geometry of HD110067 – Source: ESA

Impact

CHEOPS’s most Significant discoveries and recent discoveries are:

• A ring around a dwarf planet named Quaoar.
• The first detection of deformation of an exoplanet.
• A new and unique planetary system named TOI-178. It contains six exoplanets, five of which have orbital resonances ^[1] .
• Four exoplanets orbit four stars in the Milky Way. These exoplanets are called Mini-Neptunes and are the most common type of exoplanet. Those are in the size between Earth and Neptune and orbit around the sun closer than Mercury.
• An uncommon star system boasting six exoplanets has been unveiled. These planets orbit their central star, HD110067, in a harmonious rhythm. The arrangement of their orbits indicates that the system has remained largely unaltered since its formation over a billion years ago.

Fun Facts

• CHEOPS is the 1^st space mission that conducts in-depth research to find exoplanets!
• CHEOPS is the most effective tool for identifying subtle transits and precisely calculating the sizes of established exoplanets within the mass range spanning from super-Earths^[2] to Neptune mass range (1- 6 times the Earth’s radius).

This is one of the first steps towards studying the extrasolar world!

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ACKTAR PARTS:

^[1]Orbital Resonances – There are patterns that repeat themselves as the planets go around the star, with some planets aligning every few orbits.

^[2]Super-Earth – A type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth’s, but substantially below that of the Solar System’s ice giants. The term refers only to the mass of the planet.