Description
The ESA PLATO mission will be launched by the end of 2026 with the goal to detect terrestrial planets in habitable zones of bright, Solar-like stars. Our study assesses PLATO’s capability to discover transiting planets by computing its detection sensitivities. We analyse how these PLATO detection sensitivities vary across F, G, and K-type stars and evaluate the effectiveness of different observing strategies. Specifically, we compare the impact of longer observations in the southern hemisphere versus transitioning to the northern field to determine which approach maximizes PLATO’s sensitivity to detect a true Sun-Earth analogue.
In addition to estimating PLATO’s sensitivities, we compute these values for other photometric missions, mainly TESS. Comparing the sensitivities between the two missions allows us to highlight the discovery space that was not covered by TESS but will be by PLATO.
As photometric data for the Northern and Southern PLATO field exists from other missions, we make use of this existing photometry which enhances our sensitivity estimates. In the Southern hemisphere we leverage TESS observations, while in the North we integrate data from both TESS and Kepler. Although PLATO has a higher precision than TESS, when including this archival data, especially from the continuous viewing zone where more than 3 years of TESS data are available, PLATO’s detection sensitivities are enhanced.
Our results provide insights into PLATO’s planet discovery potential and the observing strategy that will have the highest sensitivity to Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of their Sun-like stars.
