ESA’s CHEOPS Sends First Image

CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) of the European Space Agency (ESA) recently beamed the first image of its initial target star. The image features a stellar field centred on HD 70843, a yellow-white star located around 150 light years away. This is ESA’s first mission focussed on exoplanets.

CHEOPS

• CHEOPS was launched on 18th December, 2019, from Kouru, French Guiana on a Soyuz-Fregat launcher which placed it in a Sun-synchronous orbit at a mean altitude of 700 km above Earth.
• The mission’s primary goals are to measure the bulk density of known exoplanets- in the super-Earth to Neptune size range- orbiting bright ....