TESS is a NASA Explorer mission launched in 2018 to study exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. TESS will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. It will monitor more than 200,000 stars, looking for temporary dips in brightness caused by planets transiting across these stars. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify a wide range of planets, from Earth-sized to gas giants. The mission will find exoplanet candidates for follow-up observation from missions like the James Webb Space Telescope, which will determine whether these candidates could support life.
For more information, please visit the TESS website.
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TESS uses its four cameras to take full images of one patch of sky, called a sector, every 10 minutes for a month at a time. This long stare allows TESS to see when planets pass in front of their stars, or transit, and dim their light. Over the course of a year, TESS collects hundreds of thousands of snapshots, each containing thousands of possible planets – too many for scientists to examine without help.
Computers are very good at analyzing such data sets, but they’re not perfect. Even the most carefully crafted algorithms can fail when the signal from a planet is weak. Some of the most interesting exoplanets, like small worlds with long orbits, can be especially challenging. Planet Patrol volunteers will help discover such worlds and will contribute to scientists’ understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve throughout the universe.
Planets aren’t the only source of changes in starlight, though. Some stars naturally change brightness over time, for example. In other cases, a star could actually be an eclipsing binary, where two orbiting stars alternately transit or eclipse each other. Or there may be an eclipsing binary in the background that creates the illusion of a planet transiting a target star. Instrumental quirks can also cause brightness variations. All these false alarms can trick automated planet-hunting processes.
On the new website, participants will help astronomers sift through TESS images of potential planets by answering a set of questions for each – like whether it contains multiple bright sources or if it resembles stray light rather than light from a star. These questions help the researchers narrow down the list of possible planets for further follow-up study.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Music: "Virtual Memory" from Killer Tracks
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Complete transcript available.
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
The object, called WD 1856 b, is about seven times larger than the white dwarf. Based on the object’s size, astronomers think it’s a giant gaseous planet, which future observations and research may confirm. They also estimate it’s no more than 14 times Jupiter’s mass. The potential world circles the white dwarf every 34 hours, over 60 times faster than Mercury orbits our Sun.
The system may have looked very different prior to 6 billion years ago, though. When a Sun-like star runs out of fuel, it swells up to hundreds to thousands of times its original size, forming a cooler red giant star. Eventually it ejects its outer layers of gas, losing up to 80% of its mass. The remaining hot core becomes a white dwarf. Any nearby objects are engulfed and incinerated during this process, which in this system would have included WD 1856 b in its current orbit. Astronomers estimate the possible planet must have originated at least 50 times farther away.
The team suggests several scenarios that could have nudged WD 1856 b onto an elliptical path around the white dwarf. This trajectory would have become more circular over time as the star’s gravity stretched the object, creating enormous tides that dissipated its orbital energy.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC)
Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS
From molten lava and frigid icy planets, to bizarre places that rain rubies and sapphires and water-covered worlds, the possibilities of new worlds for the planet-hunter to find are limitless. Are Earth and the other planets in our solar system unique? Join NASA scientists from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 10 – days before the launch – as they share some of the exciting discoveries they hope to find with the TESS mission.
TESS will find promising planets that other NASA telescopes – like the Hubble Space Telescope and future James Webb Space Telescope – could look at in more detail to determine what their atmospheres are made of, and whether these unknown worlds could potentially support life.
Suggested Questions:
1. What is an exoplanet and why are scientists excited about them?
2. How will this new mission help NASA in the search for life?
3. Will this planet-hunter change the way we look at the stars in the night sky?
4. Previous telescopes have found really unusual worlds. What kinds of planets are you looking forward to TESS discovering?
5. Where can we learn more?
Questions for longer interviews:
1. Where will TESS orbit?
2. What has been the biggest surprise in searching for exoplanets?
3. How will TESS detect planets?
4. What makes TESS different than other planet hunter missions?
5. What does it look like when a planet crosses in front of the parent star?
Live Shot Details:
Location: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Greenbelt, Maryland
Scientists:
Dr. Paul Hertz / NASA Director of Astrophysics
—or—
Dr. Joshua Schlieder / NASA Scientist
—or—
Dr. Jennifer Burt / MIT Torres postdoctoral fellow
—or—
Natalia Guerrero / MIT Kavli TESS Objects of Interest Deputy Manager [ en Español ]z
NASA will broadcast a stunning view of Mercury on May 9 as it journeys across the sun. The event, known as a transit, occurs when Mercury passes directly between Earth and the sun. This rare phenomenon will cause Mercury to look like a black dot gliding across the sun’s face. Mercury’s last transit was in 2006, and it won’t happen again until 2019!
Starting at 7:12 a.m. EDT, Mercury will spend more than seven hours travelling across the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory will take the first near real time, ultra-high definition images ever for this event. This is also an opportunity for NASA scientists to fine tune the spacecraft’s cameras, using a method that can only be done during a transit.
Dance of the Solar System is the First Solar Event of 2017
Stay Tuned for the Big Event of 2017, the August Solar Eclipse!
It may not feel like it this week in parts of the country, but spring begins in just a few days. March 20 kicks off the first day of astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere. On March 20, the day of the spring Equinox, the sun will pass directly over the Earth’s equator, giving the entire planet equal hours of day and night. This is the seasonal marker in Earth’s orbit around the sun when daylight hours begin to get longer than night.
This dance of the solar system is just one celestial event we’ll see this year. On August 21 all 50 states in the U.S. will be in prime position to see a partial or even a total solar eclipse, which happens when the moon is in perfect position to blot out the sun’s bright disk. The last time the U.S. saw a coast-to-coast solar eclipse was in 1918! The path of totality runs from Oregon to South Carolina.
NASA will lead an unprecedented science initiative during the eclipse that will draw on the collaboration of the public to help collect images, data and even temperature readings from across the nation during the hour-and-a-half it takes to cross the continent.