{"id":88701,"date":"2026-02-19T12:01:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T06:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=88701"},"modified":"2026-02-19T14:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T09:24:48","slug":"characterising-exoplanet-satellite-cheops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/characterising-exoplanet-satellite-cheops\/","title":{"rendered":"CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ESA\u2019s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) recently revealed a four-planet system whose outermost world is a small and rocky planet \u2014 not a gas giant. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS)<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the<\/span><b> first space mission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> dedicated to<\/span><b> studying bright, nearby stars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that are <\/span><b>already known to host exoplanets,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in order to make high-precision <\/span><b>observations <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the <\/span><b>planet&#8217;s size<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as it passes in front of its host star.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It<\/span><b> focuses on planets in the super-Earth to Neptune size range.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Launch date:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 18 December <\/span><b>2019<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Orbit<\/strong>: <\/span><b>Sun-synchronous, dusk-dawn orbit <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at 700 km above Earth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The spacecraft has a <\/span><b>single science instrument<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: a <\/span><b>specialized camera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> called a <\/span><b>photometer<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CHEOPS<\/span><b> observes transits of Earth-to-Neptune-sized exoplanets <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>measures <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">their <\/span><b>diameters <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">within 10 percent.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When<\/span><b> combined with mass data from ground telescopes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it<\/span><b> helps calculate planet density.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A planet\u2019s<\/span><b> density provides <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">vital clues about its <\/span><b>composition and structure,<\/b> <b>indicating, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for example, if it is predominantly <\/span><b>rocky or gassy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or perhaps harbours significant <\/span><b>oceans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sci.news\/astronomy\/cheops-rocky-exoplanet-lhs-1903e-14554.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SCI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft dedicated to studying bright, nearby stars that are already known to host exoplanets. Read more about CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS), Aim, Orbit, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":88695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5547,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-88701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-characterising-exoplanet-satellite-cheops","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88701"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88712,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88701\/revisions\/88712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}