The European Space Agency (ESA) is on a lookout for Earth like planets outside our solar system and for the mission it is developing a unique telescope.
According to the ESA officials, it would be a three-year mission which will commence in 2024. The mission has been named PLATO and it is expected to cost more than 800 million euros.
The mission will use Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars (PLATO), a new generation telescope made of a set of 34 telescopes, to monitor the planets outside our solar system. This telescope can screen the planets without getting interrupted from the sun or earth’s atmosphere.
With this ambitious space mission, the European Space Agency aims at collecting more and more information on planets with Earth like qualities of life and others. It is noteworthy, the scientists have identified more than 1000 planets outside our Milky Way galaxy but unfortunately none of them have shown Earth like qualities such as size and distance from the sun.
According to the experts, Plato will be the first attempt to explore nearby habitable planets around Sun-like stars that can support life. Moreover, the new mission will also help the astronomers to study the extrasolar planets or exoplanets.
Lauding the new space mission, Dr. Don Pollacco, researcher at the University of Warwick and lead researcher at the Plato Science Consortium says, “PLATO will give the first systematic survey of nearby planets for indications from advanced life forms.’
