Brussels, 01 Apr 2003
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Astronomical Observatory of Palermo have jointly organised a workshop entitled 'stellar structure and habitable planet finding', to take place from 9 to 11 April in Palermo, Italy.
The purpose of the event is to select a single area of the sky within which the 'Eddington' space observatory will search for habitable planets in a mission due for launch at the beginning of 2008.
The selection of the area of sky, or target field, for the mission is critical, as Eddington will restrict its search for planets that could support life on Earth as we know it to this area alone.
The workshop will attract more than 150 participants from Europe, the US and Australia, including leading scientists and representatives from European space companies.
For further information, please consult the following web addresses:
http://sci.esa.int/home/eddington/
http://www.astropa.unipa.it/Eddington/In dex.html