| Abstract |
The CoRoT satellite was launched on December 2006 with two goals: to
search for extrasolar planets and study the interior structure of stars.
So far, six planets and a brown dwarf (with 20 Jupiter masses) have been
reported and several results on stellar seismology are published. Among
the highlights of planet discoveries from CoRoT is a small terrestrial
planet, CoRoT-7b, with less than two Earth radii size. The present status
of the CoRoT mission, with emphasis on the steadily growing CoRoT planet
family, will be reported. In addition, potential observational biases of
the two currently most successful planet detection methods, radial
velocity and transit search, will be addressed. Finally, an outlook to
proposed future transit detection missions (PLATO) and prospects for
characterization of transiting terrestrial planets will be given.
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