Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

Sept. 27, 2023

Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers recently detected a new exoplanet orbiting a distant star.

About Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS):

It is a NASA mission to discover exoplanets around nearby bright stars.
Launch: It was launched on April 18, 2018, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral.
Orbit: TESS circles Earth in a unique high Earth orbit of 12 to 15 days, which is inclined in a way that the telescope’s sky view is largely free from obstructions by our bright planet and the Moon.
The prime mission ended on July 4, 2020, and TESS is now on an extended mission.
TESS is finding planets ranging from small, rocky worlds to giant planets, showcasing the diversity of planets in the galaxy.
How does TESS find exoplanets?
- It uses the transit method to detect planets.
- It looks for periodic dips in stars' brightnessas planets cross in front of them along our sightline.
- The larger the planet, the further the drop in brightness during the transit.
- How long it takes a planet to pass in front of the star and come back tells us the shape of its orbit.
- This method reveals the diameter of the planet and the size of its orbit. Orbits within a certain range lie in the “habitable zone”, where liquid water can exist on the surface of an Earth-like world.