Narrator: TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite,
is NASA’s newest planet hunter. The mission has operated for
a year, mapping most of the southern sky and is now surveying the northern sky.
With mountains of data to analyze, scientists have just scratched the
surface of what they can learn using TESS. Here are some
noteworthy discoveries from TESS’s first year. [TEXT: TESS’s first year of science]
In September, the TESS team released the first of 26 planned sector
images. [TEXT: TESS shares first science image] Each sector is a 24-by-96-degree strip
of sky, monitored by TESS’s four cameras.
[TEXT:TESS rounds up its first planets] By the end of 2018, TESS began delivering on its promise to discover
new worlds around nearby bright stars when astronomers announced the mission’s
first new exoplanets. In April 2019,
one year after launch, astronomers announced the discovery of
TESS’s first Earth-size exoplanet. [TEXT: TESS’s first Earth-size planet HD 21749 c]
Orbiting a relatively nearby star, this world is likely too hot to support life,
but it proved that TESS could find small planets that orbit very
close to their stars. TESS has now found several
multiplanet systems, where small planets orbit nearby stars, just
as it was designed to do. [TEXT: Many multiplanet systems] Many are not in the habitable zone,
like the planets in the L 98-59 system, but
all are teaching us more about the wide range of planets out there.
Even before starting its hunt for exoplanets, TESS was making
observations to test its cameras. [TEXT: TESS watches Comet C/2018 N1] In late July 2018,
TESS imaged a passing comet, along with many asteroids in our solar
system, visible here as moving white dots.
Later in the year, TESS went from seeing comets orbiting our Sun
to comets other stars. [TEXT: Exocomets in Beta Pictoris system] Its cameras spotted fluctuations
in light from the star Beta Pictoris that are now recognized as the
signatures of three comets passing in front of the star. They join
planets already discovered in this young, nearby system.
[TEXT: TESS snares far-flung supernovae] Although designed to look for exoplanets, TESS also spots many supernovae,
bright explosions that mark the deaths of stars. Its cameras
can catch these outbursts from their very start, even before ground-based
surveys identify them. After just
one year, TESS has already expanded our understanding of
new worlds close to home, and exploding stars beyond our galaxy.
[TEXT: Explore: Solar System and Beyond]
NASA