What is CHEOPS ? |An European Space Agency mission (Part-3)

Links

1. For part-1 : https://ikanlife16.blogspot.com/2019/04/cheops-european-space-agency-mission.html.
2. For part-2 : https://ikanlife16.blogspot.com/2019/05/cheops-european-space-agency-mission.html.

Characterisation of exoplanets

This topic deals with how CHEOPS will focus on the exoplanets and what other things we can expect.

1. It will focus on exoplanets with orbital periods of around 50 days or less with size of planets varying from Earth sized to Neptune sized. 
2. Shorter orbital periods will provide an advantage over multiple transits, making it easier to repeat observations to get precised measurements.
3. CHEOPS will use ultra high precision transit photometry to precisely measure sizes of exoplanets. It will make easier to measure the variations in brightness of star's light over a transit to level of few tens of ppm(parts per million).
4. CHEOPS will be able to take frequent measurements up to one per minute making it possible to characterise the light curves in detail, it will also help to take detailed measurements of beginning & end periods of transits which will also help to know key information like inclination of orbit & exact time of transit.
   
5. Measurements of transit depth will further help to calculate accurate values of radius of an exoplanet, combining all these information's together like known mass of planets(calculated) will help us to know about possible composition & structure like whether it is rocky or gassy etc. These measurements can further help us to know about the significant atmosphere of planets.
   

These all characteristics will help astronomers to redefine our models of formation & evolution of small planets which may help us in understanding the evolution of our very own solar system.
For some planets it will also be possible to detect changes in starlight reflected by them as they orbit around their host star, like we experience the phases of the moon. These phase curves of the changing brightness of star as exoplanet moves around it's orbit will help us to get insight of physical processes that drive the transportation of heat from hot day sides to cooler day side. Analysis of phase curves will also reveal details of planet's atmosphere, including presence of clouds & their composition.
  The top precision of CHEOPS will allow scientists to monitor the activity of stars. It will also enable the measurement of trans-Neptunian objects( objects outside the orbit of Neptune like Pluto) as they pass in front & block light from background stars.

New planets & Exo-moons

CHEOPS have the ability to discover previously unknown planets by measuring tiny variations of the timing of transit of known planets. It's high precision can also discover small planets orbiting close to stars that may have been missed in previous observations.

  Transit Photometry can help to search for moons orbiting transiting planets, even asteroids & planetary rings.

Hubble space telescope is the only instrument till now which have strongly discovered an exo-moon in Oct 2018.

The main question now will be that can CHEOPS detect more exoplanets?

Peace☮