The TESS Mission of NASA

Image for representative purpose only.

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) of NASA to boost its search for exoplanets beyond our solar system

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), one of the space-explorer giant on this planet is on its unique mission to search for different exoplanets beyond our solar system. The main hope for this mission to the NASA scientists is their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite system or in short TESS. This giant leap for the search of exoplanets beyond our solar system that could support life by blocking the light from its parent star in a periodic manner or the event is better known as Transits. The TESS system launched today on 16th April, 2018 will search for nearly 20,000 brightest stars near the sun beyond our solar system to search for a possible exoplanet that could support life. Scientists at NASA hope that this TESS system will help to vastly increase the current number of known exoplanets and will enable future researchers for comprehensive follow-up studies by providing a rich set of new targets. It is expected that the new exoplanets that will be discovered by TESS will contain both earth-sized planet and giant planets no longer than twice the size of earth. The TESS will survey the entire sky for two long years dividing it into different sectors and will only investigate the stars 30 to 100 times brighter than those of Kepler mission. The main principle behind transit method for searching exoplanets is to search for dip in visible light or apparent brightness of the stars and periodic dips enable researchers to study a lot about the exoplanets. The size of a planet can be determined from the amount of dip in light the planet causes to its star and the shape of the planet and its time for revolution around its sun can also be determined. This transmit photometry method will enable TESS to create a lists of thousands of exoplanets which after compiling will confirm the truth of the exoplanet by ground-based follow-up observations. The ground based telescopes will collaborate with other to determine the masses of the planet. The above data will help to determine the planet's compositions using ground-based follow-up systems. This will further confirm the nature of those giants if they are rocky, gaseous or something unusual matter. The atmosphere of these exoplanets will be studied by following-up with different ground- and space-based missions. Thus the TESS mission will give a broad overview of numerous exoplanets nearest to our solar system and will surely enable us to discover some earth or giant-sized planets that have the capability to support life on it.

Source: NASA