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Originally Posted by Jetlack
Either we are being totally misled by propaganda, or CNES is just being very tight lipped. I would like to think its the latter.
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Remember that the CoRoT team hadn't told anything publicly before the news release. Everything was just rumours, and if we got hyped, it's our fault. Though I hoped that they would have revealed more planets as it seems they have more of them confirmed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetlack
WE were also told that COROT would spot earth sized planets. WE were also told - in one of the few press releases since in 2007 - that COROTs instruments were even more accurate than previously thought.
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The nominal accuracy wouldn't have been enough to spot Earth-sized planets. They're just started to analyse the data and signals of smaller planets certainly are not easy to detect. CoRoT-Exo-1b and CoRoT-Exo-2b both are very large planets that orbit relatively bright stars smaller than the Sun, so they were very easy to detect.
I'm confident they will make one or several major discoveries, but it'll take time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetlack
Another strange thing is look how small the COROT section at ESA is. It should be billed as one of their most interesting missions at the moment but if you look on the homepage its really hard to locate the webpage.
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CoRoT is an CNET (French) mission where ESA is only a partner. And it is actually really small mission with a tiny spacecraft.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetlack
If this was the NASA Kepler mission there would be weekly updates and a blog, hundreds of pages detailing the science and equipment etc....The difference is NASA appears to understand they have to show results to the public to keep their generous funding. We wouldnt be counting on obscure European space blogs for a "rumour" from the supposedly highly "excited Mr Fridlund". This is publicly funded reasearch and the information and findings should be shared with the public and the scientific community. It should not be treated like some big secret.
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Kepler is far larger mission conducted by an agency that has long experience on PR. It was also
very close of being cancelled. ESA had similar project, Eddington, that wasn't as lucky. Stupid, if you ask me because this kind of missions should be relatively easy to do and they produce vast amounts of important data (not just about planets).
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Originally Posted by Jetlack
When i complained about this lack of transparency before someone gave me a link to the erroneous Hubble announcement about 100 planets being found. Ya, that was a mistake but i prefer an honest and overtly eager PR mistake than being miseld purposefully in regards to a publicly funded project.
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This is good example why major discoveries must not be released too hastily.