Europe's Cheops telescope will profile distant planets

Europe will launch a space telescope to study far-off worlds this week.

Called Cheops, it's a different kind of mission to previous efforts in that it won't be trying to find new planets.

Rather, it's going to follow up the discoveries of others, to see if it can reveal new insights - such as whether these distant objects are likely to be rocky or gas-rich.

The telescope will ride to orbit on a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

The mission was scheduled for an early morning lift-off on Tuesday, but a late technical glitch related to the rocket's upper-stage Fregat booster stopped the countdown. A launch attempt on Wednesday may be possible if the issue can be resolved.

Cheops (short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) is a joint endeavour of 11 member states of the European Space Agency (Esa), with Switzerland in the lead.