{"id":18516,"date":"2018-05-18T17:45:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T09:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/its-full-of-stars-nasas-planet-hunting-tess-probe-sends-back-its-first-test-image\/"},"modified":"2018-05-18T17:45:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T09:45:53","slug":"its-full-of-stars-nasas-planet-hunting-tess-probe-sends-back-its-first-test-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/its-full-of-stars-nasas-planet-hunting-tess-probe-sends-back-its-first-test-image\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s full of stars! NASA\u2019s planet-hunting TESS probe sends back its first test image"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_420936\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-420936\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-420936\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/180518-stars-630x504.jpg\" alt=\"TESS star field\" width=\"630\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/180518-stars-630x504.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/180518-stars-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/180518-stars.jpg 985w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-420936\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">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)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One month after its launch, NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows more than 200,000 stars in the southern sky.<\/p>\n<p>TESS\u2019 image was taken by one of its cameras with a two-second exposure. The picture is centered on the constellation Centaurus, with the edge of the dark Coalsack Nebula at upper right and the star Beta Centauri prominent along the lower edge.<\/p>\n<p>The picture provides only a hint of what TESS will be seeing once it starts delivering science-quality images next month.&nbsp;When all four wide-field cameras are in operation, TESS\u2019 images should cover more than 400 times as much of the sky.<\/p>\n<p>The refrigerator-sized spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 18. On Thursday, the probe completed a lunar flyby that brought it closer to its intended orbit for scientific observations..One more thruster burn is scheduled on May 30 to complete the orbital maneuvers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"The Unique Orbit of NASA\u2019s Newest Planet Hunter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-AIbD2WxyN8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>TESS is designed to monitor 85 percent of the night sky from a highly eccentric Earth orbit, ranging from 63,000 to 200,000 miles in altitude. It\u2019ll zero in on 200,000 of the brightest stars in our celestial neighborhood, looking for telltale changes in brightness that result when a planet crosses over the star\u2019s disk.<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers expect to identify more than 1,500 of such transiting exoplanets during TESS\u2019 two-year primary mission. About 500 of those are expected to be Earth-sized or slightly bigger than Earth.<\/p>\n<p>TESS\u2019 findings will serve as a catalog for follow-up observations using more powerful instruments&nbsp;\u2014 such as NASA\u2019s James Webb Telescope, which is currently slated for launch in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[559,190,4709,2398],"class_list":["post-18516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-exoplanets","tag-nasa","tag-planets","tag-tess"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}