Scientific Seminars

Searching for Planets in the Habitable Zone. From CoRoT to PLATO.

Ennio Poretti
INAF-OAB

2011-02-09    14:00    Brera - Cupola Fiore

The number of extrasolar planets is rapidly growing. CoRoT and Kepler space missions are discovering planets in very different physical conditions. The habitable zone of stars in the lower part of the main sequence still remains unexplored. The dynamical evolution of extrasolar systems is still unclear. In this respect the results from asteroseismology are very encouranging. We can say that several questions are posed in a clear way, but the answers are still incomplete. A new tool is necessary and the ESA space mission PLATO, with its sinergies with GAIA and ground-based efforts, is currently the best one in our hands.