Pioneering planet hunter suffers radiation overdose

The first space telescope to hunt for transiting exoplanets may be on its deathbed.

On 2 November, the COROT satellite, which launched in 2006, lost the use of its only remaining onboard computer. The spacecraft can no longer receive data from its 30-centimetre telescope, which searches for the telltale dimming of stars as planets cross in front of them.

The culprit was too much radiation, says project scientist Malcolm Fridlund of the European Space Agency. The orbiting spacecraft had spent a long time in a harsh particle environment called the South Atlantic Anomaly.

Earth's magnetic field is especially weak at this region about 200 to 800 kilometres above the surface, leading to high levels of damaging radiation. Because of its passages through the anomaly, COROT had survived more than twice the amount of radiation it was designed to withstand.

Flicker of hope

COROT is perhaps most famous for discovering the first rocky exoplanet, COROT-7b. But it also found 30 other confirmed planets and some 500 planet candidates. The hardy spacecraft had just been approved to start its second mission extension in 2013 when the computer failed.

The loss diminishes the capabilities of planet hunters. COROT was designed to point in multiple directions, unlike its more prolific successor, the Kepler space telescope, which also looks for transits, but is stuck staring at the same part of the sky.

That meant COROT would have had the chance to look for planets in unusual places, like star clusters, says Olivier La Marle of the French space agency CNES. "No such cluster is in the Kepler field of view."

The satellite was also uniquely adept at measuring the flickering surfaces of stars to infer what's going on inside them, says Fridlund. "We will thus lose quite a lot of understanding about stellar physics."

But mission managers think there's a chance the storied spacecraft can be revived. "It depends on where the damage is," says Fridlund. "There are some spare parts on board, and if it is in any of these, something positive may still happen."

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