NASA’s Exoplanet Hunter Is Getting Us One Step Closer To Another Earth, Here’s How

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) discovered 21 planets outside our solar system during its first year in space. How does TESS categorize a planet?

Along with the planets TESS has discovered, the mission has identified more than 850 candidate exoplanets that are waiting for confirmation by ground-based telescopes.
The NASA satellite uses four large, specially designed cameras that are able to scan the sky for stars outside of our solar system.

TESS has been on this exoplanet-hunting mission for more than a year and has gathered unprecedented data on numerous other astrophysical phenomena including exocomets and supernovae.

Once a potential exoplanet is identified, TESS notifies astronomers on the ground to take a closer look with their telescopes to confirm.

Hopefully scientists will be able to get even closer looks at all the stuff that NASA’s TESS has scouted out for us when the James Webb Space Telescope eventually launches.

JWST could even take measurements of the compositions of these exciting planets and their atmospheres, telling scientists even more about whether these exoplanets could support life.

Learn more about all TESS has to offer and how the satellite recognizes a planet on this episode of Elements.

#NASA #TESS #Space #Seeker #Science #Elements

How Close Are We to Launching the James Webb Space Telescope?

Read More:
TESS Completes First Year of Survey, Turns to Northern Sky
"NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered 21 planets outside our solar system and captured data on other interesting events occurring in the southern sky during its first year of science."

Tiny dips in star brightnesses reveal 3 exocomets
"Astronomers have also detected some exocomets, or comets orbiting faraway stars, too. When you think of it, exocomet detections are an amazing accomplishment! In contrast to planets, which are relatively solid and thousands of miles wide, the nuclei, or cores, of comets are only a few miles wide."

Kepler vs. TESS
"TESS will survey the entire sky, looking at 400 times more stars than Kepler did throughout its lifetime. TESS will do this with four identical telescopes, which, combined, observe a 24-degree patch of sky at any one point. Each 27 days, TESS changes direction and looks for planets around a different set of stars in a new ‘sector’."

____________________

Elements is more than just a science show. It’s your science-loving best friend, tasked with keeping you updated and interested on all the compelling, innovative and groundbreaking science happening all around us. Join our passionate hosts as they help break down and present fascinating science, from quarks to quantum theory and beyond.

Seeker empowers the curious to understand the science shaping our world. We tell award-winning stories about the natural forces and groundbreaking innovations that impact our lives, our planet, and our universe.

[TheExoplanetsChannel]

Step by step, closer to find a *nearby Earth 2.0*

[lifethrownoutofthewindow]

lmao a planet with a 7 day orbit would be sick


every week is a new years party

[aaronramsden]

So you're saying there IS a chance that star is blasting heavy death metal, man I love science

[meows_and_woof]

If you look at our solar system, we have moons which contain water and possibly life.
So they should also focus on the moons of some gas giants

[falcaofan]

800 possible candidates in a small fraction of the sky? Yeah there’s definitely life elsewhere.

[catalinacurio]

Now we need to either bend time or utilise worm holes, I’m too greedy and want life to be found in my lifetime.

[temporaldeicide]

We should make a Terraformer...
A device which itself can terraform an entire planet by itself...
Not sure how it's gonna work... but we are gonna need one...

[hellcat]

It would be amazing if we were able to finally spot a planet with advanced alien life with this satellite.

[Master_Therion]

The planet hunting Kepler Satellite used "reaction wheels" to stay oriented, but they failed, ending the mission early :(
I read somewhere that TESS uses a more advanced reaction wheel. The Tesseract.

[alexcastellon]

Anyone here subscribed when the channel was called DNews? Great channel btw, super interesting stuff!

[asmmahfuz]

Does it really matter if there is a real 2nd earth and if we can't go there in human history?

[HShango]

im so glad we are discovering more and more earth like planets that could be suitable for life and one day for humanity.

[jlmahurin]

LOL It's in our neighboorhood. The fastest craft we have ever built is capable of 500, 000 mph. In short it would take 4, 000 years to get to if the star was just 1 light year away. Living in a day dream!!!!

[LeadfootLou]

Nice positive spin. Before TESS was launched it was expected to find Exoplanets by the thousands. That hasn’t quite happened. Nevertheless it’s a fairly inexpensive mission. Any mission created to find exoplanets is a good mission IMHO.

On a completely different note, we are much better off sending unmanned missions to Europa, Enceladus and Titan than sending a manned mission to Mars.

[WillMauer]

2:50 66ºC is double the limit of a comfortable temperature.

[commentguy]

Gorgoroth would make for a pretty cool star name. If you like heavy death metal.

[almirramic]

I am not sure if you are mixing up C and F but 66 is not “nice and cool” in C. It’s catastrophic. For reference, human body temperature is 37 C. Highest recorded on Earth is 57.8 C. Water boils at around 100 C. Chicken is cooked at 75 C.

[robertsparkman]

Exo-Solar system, stellar system, star-et-al? Only we live in a Solar system, our stars name is Sol. Ok, I'll be quiet now, great video, as always, thanks.

[VonSC]

... however, a limitation of TESS: Scans a sector of the sky in 27 day blocks. Earth: Takes 365 days to revolve around the Sun. So TESS does not stay fixed looking at any given star long enough to detect planets that have transits that have orbital periods over 50 days. From a paper 'The future of spectroscopic life detection on exoplanets
': "TESS will examine more than 0.5 million bright nearby stars and likely find thousands of exoplanets with orbital periods (i.e., years) up to about 50 d. TESS *will not be able to detect true Earth analogs (that is, Earth-sized exoplanets in 365-d orbits about Sun-like stars)*, but it will be capable of finding Earth-sized and super Earth-sized exoplanets (up to 1.75 times Earth’s size) transiting M stars, stars that are significantly smaller, cooler, and more common than our Sun."

[lasredchris]

Tess satellite - outside our solar system
Supernova

How did these solar systems evolve?