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Space Photos of the Week: Meet TESS, the Exoplanet Hunter

Reported by WIRED:

“My God, it’s full of stars.”

This week we’re teaming up with TESS. NASA’s long-awaited Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was launched by a SpaceX rocket last month and now is settling into orbit around Earth. A next-generation exoplanet hunter, TESS is the successor to the wildly successful Kepler mission, which so far has discovered more than 2,000 planets orbiting other stars. Sadly Kepler is running low on fuel, and eventually will lose the ability to orient itself toward the patches of sky in need of further study. TESS to the rescue!

In general, the search for exoplanets entails watching for a dip in light from a certain host star. Think of it this way: If aliens were staring at our Sun looking for possible evidence of planets, they would notice a different kind of dip in light when Jupiter passed in front of it than when Venus, which is much smaller, sauntered through. There’s no telling what TESS might discover once it reaches its proper and highly elliptical orbit around Earth, but it’s sure to amaze and hopefully inspire exoplanet astronomers.

Want to keep staring out into the void of space? Check out the full star-studded collection here.


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Source:WIRED

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