[Music throughout]TESS, the
Transiting Survey Satellite, has completed its survey of the northern sky,
marking the end of its primary mission. To do this,
TESS divided the northern sky into 13 sectors, and its four cameras
monitored each sector for nearly a month. With
these extended views, TESS looks for slight dips in starlight when
distant planets pass in front of their host stars. But it
also caught short-lived events, such as a black hole tearing apart
a star that wandered too close. It took a full year
of TESS imagery to build this beautiful panorama of the northern
sky. The bright band to the left is the Milky Way, our home
galaxy viewed edge on. A large swath
of the northern sky remains unmapped. For six sectors,
TESS tipped its cameras further north to avoid regions where stray light from the Earth
and the Moon would hamper the view. At the center
is the continuous viewing zone. Here the view of one
TESS camera overlaps across all 13 sectors,
which means TESS monitored the region for nearly an entire year.
At its center is the north ecliptic pole. This is
where the imaginary axis of Earth’s orbit around the Sun meets the sky.
More familiar to sky watchers is the north
celestial pole. This where the north end of our planet’s spin axis
intersects the sky. The whole starry vault appears
to revolve around this point, conveniently marked by the nearby
star Polaris. To find Polaris, follow a line
set up by these two stars in the cup of the Big Dipper.
It’s an easily recognized star pattern that forms the central part of the
large constellation Ursa Major.
Folloing the arc of the Big Dipper’s handle leads to another prominent star,
Arcturus. Located about 37 light-years
away in the constellation Boötes, Arcturus is the fourth-brightest
star in the night sky.
New stars form in gas-rich clouds throughout our galaxy.
The North America Nebula, named for its resemblance to the
continent, is a prominent example. Located about
1,700 light years-away in the constellation Cygnus, it's
part of a vast factory complex with enough gas to make
100,000 Sun-like stars.
Peering beyond the confines of our own galaxy, TESS imaged
the closest neighboring spiral galaxy. Visible by eye
as a hazy patch, the Andromeda Galaxy, located
2.5 million light years away, is a city of stars
as vast as our own Milky Way.
Astronomers have just begun sifting through the torrent of TESS data
and are working to confirm planets among the thousands of candidates
identified by the mission so far. TESS has already
found a few northern stars hosting planets. One, named
HD 191939, possesses a trio of Neptune-size
worlds. Having successfully mapped about
75% of the sky during its primary mission, TESS
is now working on extended duty. Its cameras have turned back
to the southern sky to complete another yearlong survey,
which will include areas not mapped the first time around.
Now improved to return even more data than before,
the best of TESS is yet to come.
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