So you want to go looking for other Earth-like planets and the universe is big. How do you start? Where do you look? “You select areas where you have a lot of solar-type stars,” says Malcolm Fridlund, a project scientist for the European Space Agency (ESA). “They’re most likely to have planets like our solar system’s.” Fridlund helped design COROT (for convection, rotation, and planetary transits), ESA’s early entry in the race to find rocky, Earth-like planets outside our solar system.
Launched late last year, COROT is collecting information about distant planets as well as measuring cosmic stellar vibrations, which provide clues to the interiors of distant stars. In late April, the satellite is scheduled to execute a slow, steady about-face to look the center of the Milky Way straight in the eye and scan the dense crowds of stars there for terrestrial planets. “COROT is like a fisherman who ...
