COROT: In search of rocky planets

Since the 1995 discovery of the first extrasolar planet, more than two hundred have been identified using ground-based telescopes. COROT will be launched on 27 December 2006 by a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, and will be placed in a polar orbit around Earth at an altitude of some 850 km. Led by the French Space Agency CNES, the COROT mission has wide European scientific and technological participation including ESA, Austria, Belgium, Brazil and Germany.ESApod video programme