ESA to Launch PLATO in 2024; Will be Fixed with 34 Telescopes to Examine One Million Stars

In a latest announcement, The European Space Agency announced plans to launch a new space mission called PLATO with an aim to discover Earth like worlds in the neighborhood of the Sun.

In an attempt to discover and study Earth like planets in the neighborhood of the Sun, the European Space Agency will launch a space mission PLATO (Planetary Transits and Oscillation of Stars) that will help find new worlds. The mission will be launched on a Soyuz rocket in 2024.

PLATO is one of the five proposed space projects for the 'M' mission that was presented at a meeting in Paris 19 and 20 Feb. No mission has yet discovered Earth like worlds in the habitable zone around a star, where water can be kept in a liquid state.

PLATO's discoveries will be announced three years after the observational data has been collected. 

"This is fantastic news for Europe, PLATO will allow the first systematic survey of nearby planets for indications from advanced life forms (as well as slime). A few years ago this would have been science fiction and now it's coming to pass as science fact," said Don Pollacco, University of Warwick, lead of The PLATO Science Consortium.

The U.K. will have a major hand in making the instrument. Apart from supplying the CCD sensors, it will also help build the image processing software and assist in Public Outreach. PLATO will have the largest camera system sensor ever sent to space.

"PLATO will begin a completely new chapter in the exploration of extrasolar Planets" said Dr Heike Rauer at DLR, the German Aerospace Center, and the mission lead. "We will find planets that orbit their star in the life-sustaining 'habitable' zone: planets where liquid water is expected, and where life as we know it can be maintained."

PLATO will be fixed with 34 individual telescopes. Each of the 34 telescopes will be have a 12 centimeters aperture and a satellite will be fixed at the Lagrangian Points. The gravitational force between the Sun and Earth will help the satellite stay stationary in space.

During the six years of the planned mission, PLATO will hunt for approximately one million stars. It will scan and track the brightest stars nearby.  It will measure the size, mass and age of the planetary system discovered. The team hopes that this mission will lead to the discovery of over 1000 new planets orbiting other stars.

"The observation of planets in many different states of their evolution will give us clues for the past and the future of our own planetary system", Dr Rauer said. "By no means do we know all about the youth of our Solar System."

Unlike previous mission, ESA new space mission PLATO will focus on heavenly bodies that resemble the planets of our own Solar System.