Tag: TESS
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NASA’s TESS probe chalks up its first Earth-sized planet in habitable zone, plus a ‘Tatooine’ planet
Astronomers report that NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has detected its first Earth-sized planet lying in its parent star’s habitable zone, plus its first planet orbiting two stars. The Earth-sized planet, known as TOI 700 d, is orbiting a cool M-dwarf star a little more than 100 light-years from Earth in the southern…
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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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TESS probe helps scientists find potentially habitable planet, 31 light-years away
An artist’s conception depicts GJ 357 d orbiting its host star. (Cornell University Illustration / Jack Madden) Astronomers are sharing a flood of findings from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, including the detection of a potentially habitable super-Earth far beyond our solar system. The planet is said to circle an M-type dwarf star…
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TESS planet-hunters add a ‘sub-Neptune’ world to discovery list, with more to come
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, or TESS, with an assortment of exoplanets. (NASA / GSFC / MIT Illustration) Less than a year after NASA’s TESS spacecraft was launched, the scientists behind the mission have unveiled their third confirmed planet, a weird alien world that’s between Earth and Neptune in size. And…
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TESS probe finds first potential planets
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, with an alien sun and planet in the background. (NASA / GSFC Illustration) Astronomers on the team for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, or TESS, are reporting their first potential planet discoveries, just days after the spacecraft’s first science image was unveiled. The…
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TESS in excellent health, finds 1st two exoplanet candidates during first science orbit
The joint NASA / Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has completed its first science orbit after launch and orbital activations/checkouts. Unsurprisingly given TESS’s wide range of view, a team of scientists have already identified the planet-hunting telescope’s first two exoplanet candidates. The yet-to-be-confirmed exoplanets are located 59.5 light years…
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It’s full of stars! NASA’s planet-hunting TESS probe sends back its first test image
This test image from one of the four cameras aboard the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, captures a swath of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy. (NASA / MIT / TESS Photo) One month after its launch, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows…
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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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SpaceX launches NASA’s TESS spacecraft on mission to seek out alien planets
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lofts NASA’s TESS probe into space. (NASA via YouTube) SpaceX has launched NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, kicking off a mission aimed at surveying nearly the entire sky for exoplanets. The probe rose into space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, sent up from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in…
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SpaceX successfully launches TESS on a mission to search for near-Earth exoplanets
SpaceX has launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS – with the launch on the Falcon 9 rocket taking place at 18:51:31 EDT (22:51:31 UTC). The planet-hunting observatory was lofted by a new Block 4 Falcon 9 rocket from SLC-40 into an orbital resonance with the moon that will allow it to perform a…