Tag: MIT
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In another first, NASA’s Perseverance rover generates oxygen on Mars
This view from the Perseverance rover’s navigation cameras shows the “Mars 2020” and “Perseverance” name plates on the vehicle’s robotic arm. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech In another first, an instrument inside NASA’s Perseverance rover has made oxygen out of carbon dioxide sucked in from the atmosphere of Mars, officials said Wednesday. The technology could help future astronauts…
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TESS reveals triple-binary eclipsing star system & Sun-like star with extremely close exoplanets
The first-discovered triple-binary sextuple star system and a Sun-like star with five exoplanets orbiting within the distance of Mercury are just two recent examples of the extraordinary systems being investigated and discovered by scientist using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. The joint NASA-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) mission is the cornerstone…
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First possible “survivor” planet orbiting a white dwarf seen via NASA telescopes
A potential planet… where no planet should be. An international team of astronomers utilizing NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and data obtained from the now-retired Spitzer space telescope have reported an astounding potential discovery of a surviving planet closely orbiting a white dwarf. So what’s the big deal? Scientists have found many exoplanets in close…
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New discoveries from NASA’s TESS mission include potentially habitable exoplanet
Artist’s illustration of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized habitable-zone planet discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientists crunching data from NASA’s orbiting TESS planet-hunting observatory have discovered a potentially habitable Earth-sized world circling a star a bit more than 100 light-years from the sun, the first such…
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Halfway through all-sky survey, NASA’s planet-hunting TESS mission gets extension
Artist’s concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, fresh off a two-year extension to keep operating through 2022, has turned its cameras to image the northern sky after cataloguing nearly 1,000 candidate planets around other stars in the first year of its mission. The TESS mission reached the…
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Astronomers announce first exoplanets discovered by NASA’s TESS mission
Six months into its mission scanning the sky for planets around other stars, NASA’s orbiting TESS observatory has found three previously-undiscovered worlds and hundreds candidates requiring follow-up observations, the first batch of a potential haul of up to 10,000 exoplanet detections over TESS’s planned two-year mission, astronomers announced this week. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
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TESS’s planet hunt begins
Artist’s concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA NASA’s newest observatory in space has started its search for planets around other stars, officials said Friday, as astronomers zero in on worlds that are ripe for research by follow-up missions like the James Webb Space Telescope. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite officially began a…
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NASA’s new planet-hunting satellite begins climb into science orbit
Artist’s illustration of TESS in space. Credit: NASA/Goddard Looping back near Earth for the first time since its launch one week ago, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite fired its thrusters early Wednesday to begin boosting its orbit toward the moon for a May 17 gravity assist maneuver that will help catapult the probe into its…
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After “terrific” launch, TESS nears first major orbit-raising burn
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in orbit. Credit: Orbital ATK NASA’s new planet-hunting TESS observatory completed its first post-launch thruster firing Saturday, setting up for a big boost Wednesday that will send the spacecraft toward the moon for a flyby next month, the next maneuvers in a two-month process to reach the…
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Falcon 9 / TESS launch replays
Cameras in various locations at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center capture the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s TESS planet-hunting telescope. Video: NASA TV.