The PLATO mission

Rauer H et al. 2025. The PLATO mission. Experimental Astronomy. 59(3), 26.

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Author
Rauer, Heike; Aerts, Conny; Cabrera, Juan; Deleuil, Magali; Erikson, Anders; Gizon, Laurent; Goupil, Mariejo; Heras, Ana; Walloschek, Thomas; Lorenzo-Alvarez, Jose; Marliani, Filippo; Martin-Garcia, César
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Abstract
PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA’s M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2R Earth) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5%, 10%, 10% for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO‘s target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile towards the end of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2025-04-21
Journal Title
Experimental Astronomy
Publisher
Springer Nature
Acknowledgement
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Volume
59
Issue
3
Article Number
26
ISSN
eISSN
IST-REx-ID

Cite this

Rauer H, Aerts C, Cabrera J, et al. The PLATO mission. Experimental Astronomy. 2025;59(3). doi:10.1007/s10686-025-09985-9
Rauer, H., Aerts, C., Cabrera, J., Deleuil, M., Erikson, A., Gizon, L., … Dansac, L. M. (2025). The PLATO mission. Experimental Astronomy. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-025-09985-9
Rauer, Heike, Conny Aerts, Juan Cabrera, Magali Deleuil, Anders Erikson, Laurent Gizon, Mariejo Goupil, et al. “The PLATO Mission.” Experimental Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-025-09985-9.
H. Rauer et al., “The PLATO mission,” Experimental Astronomy, vol. 59, no. 3. Springer Nature, 2025.
Rauer H et al. 2025. The PLATO mission. Experimental Astronomy. 59(3), 26.
Rauer, Heike, et al. “The PLATO Mission.” Experimental Astronomy, vol. 59, no. 3, 26, Springer Nature, 2025, doi:10.1007/s10686-025-09985-9.
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2025-05-05
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