About the project
This space telescope is currently under development by ESA and scheduled to launch in 2026. PLATO will search for planetary transits across up to one million stars to discover and characterize earth-like extrasolar planets in the habitable zone around sun-like stars. Another objective is to study stellar oscillations or seismic activity in stars to measure their mass, age, and evolution. The mission is designed to observe significantly more stars with greater measurement precision. Post-detection investigations such as spectroscopy, asteroseismology, and in some cases imaging will provide further data enhancement. With this method observations can expand to small exoplanets and exoplanets with long orbital periods.
Our contribution
Visual/NIR light cameras in wide-field telescopes for measuring 500-1000 nm, need protection from t harsh radiation hard environment. To protect the sensitive infra-red imaging optics and electronics from damage due to solar protons, Heraeus Conamic supports the PLATO mission with radiation hardened Suprasil 312 high-purity fused silica windows.
