CoRoT: harvest of the exoplanet program

TL;DR

The CoRoT mission has used high-precision photometry to discover and characterize over 500 exoplanet candidates, including the first transiting rocky planet, providing insights into planetary structures and formation.

Contribution

This paper reports the successful detection and characterization of exoplanets, including the first rocky planet, using CoRoT's high-precision photometry and ground-based follow-up, advancing exoplanet science.

Findings

Discovered about 500 planet candidates with 5% confirmed as planets.

Characterized the internal structures of close-in giant planets.

Identified the first transiting rocky planet, CoRoT-7 b.

Abstract

One of the objectives of the CoRoT mission is the search for transiting extrasolar planets using high-precision photometry, and the accurate characterization of their fundamental parameters. The CoRoT satellite consecutively observes crowded stellar fields since February 2007, in high-cadence precise photometry; periodic eclipses are detected and analysed in the stellar light curves. Then complementary observations using ground-based facilities allows establishing the nature of the transiting body and its mass. CoRoT has acquired more than 163,000 light curves and detected about 500 planet candidates. A fraction of them (5%) are confirmed planets whose masses are independently measured. Main highlights of the CoRoT discoveries are: i) the variety of internal structures in close-in giant planets, ii) the characterisation of the first known transiting rocky planet, CoRoT-7 b, iii) multiple constraints on the formation, evolution, role of tides in planetary systems.