Detection of earth-sized planets with the COROT space mission

The frequent occurrence of disks around pre-main sequence stars, as well as the recent detections of massive extra-solar planets suggest planetary formation is common. The next challenge is the detection of Earth-like planets. Their detection from the ground is problematic due to their very low masses and brightnesses, but space observations could enable these detections. The French space mission COROT (COnvection & ROTation), originally devoted to asteroseismology, is also well-adapted for the detection of low-mass objects using the method of stellar occultation. Due to its high photometric accuracy, a few tens of detections can be expected over the mission lifetime, assuming that about 50% of stars possess an Earth-like planet.