Science and WeatherEverything you wanted to know about NASA’s next-gen planet hunter
When NASA announced their plans to launch a next-generation planet-hunting satellite in 2017, called TESS — Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — which would scan the entire sky for exoplanets orbiting the nearest and brightest stars, it raised a few questions.
How would it scan the entire sky, when Kepler only watches a tiny portion of it? What does this special orbit they designed for the mission look like, and how will the spacecraft achieve it?
[ Related: NASA’s next-gen planet hunter will find nearby habitable worlds ]
The initial press release for the mission held some of the answers, but now a video has been posted by MIT's Dr. George Ricker, who is the the mission principle investigator, that goes into great detail about how TESS will accomplish its goals:
From the description that goes along with the video:
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. In a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS will monitor more than 500,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances. No ground-based survey can achieve this feat.
TESS will serve as the "People's Telescope," with data releases every 4 months, inviting immediate community-wide efforts to study the new planets. The TESS legacy will be a catalog of the nearest and brightest main-sequence stars hosting transiting exoplanets, which will forever be the most favorable targets for detailed investigations.
[ More Geekquinox: Exoplanet-naming contest ruffles official feathers ]
How much will TESS cost? The US government has granted $200 million to the mission, a mere 0.006% of the nearly $3 trillion US federal budget, or roughly 64 cents from each person in the United States. Well worth it when you consider TESS will help answer one of our fundamental questions about the universe: Are we alone?
Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!
