Jan 14, 2022
ESA's PLATO mission has been given the green light to continue its development after a successful critical review on January 11, 2022.
PLATO, or PLANetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision program. Its objective is to find and study a large number of planetary systems, with a focus on the properties of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around solar-type stars.
Oct 17, 2017
Planetary migration: magnetic or tidal effects ?
A large part of the exoplanets known today are in very close orbit around their star, allowing very intense interactions between the planets and the host star. An international collaboration, led by researchers from Department of Astrophysics-AIM Laboratory at CEA-Irfu, has shown that these planets in close orbits migrate rapidly, due to the combined effect of tidal forces and magnetic forces. This study provides essential elements for understanding the formation and evolution of star-planet systems.
Jul 13, 2017
The secret of the star magnetic cycles
Thanks to new numerical simulations, a scientific team led by researchers from the Astrophysics Department-Laboratory AIM of CEA-Irfu has succeeded in explaining why the magnetic field of the Sun reverses every 11 years. Scientists have highlighted the existence of a strong feedback between the star magnetic field and its internal rotation profile, with temporal modulations that ultimately determine the period of the cycle.
Jun 21, 2017
The European PLATO mission definitively accepted at ESA.
The PLATO space mission (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) was adopted at a meeting of the Scientific Programme Committee of the European Space Agency (ESA) on 21 June 2017. PLATO aims to discover rocky planets around nearby stars, similar to our Sun.
Nov 01, 2016
The evolution of the structure and the rotation of the central star drastically modify the orbits of the planets
In a special issue of the international journal Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy of November 2016, devoted to the study of the tidal interactions, two researchers from the University of Namur and the Astrophysics Division- AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu have computed the dynamics of short-period planets of different types orbiting low-mass mass stars.
