- 3981 - TESS - exoplanet survey? TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission recently reached its fifth anniversary of service to humanity as it continues to tirelessly scan the heavens for worlds beyond. Dubbed as an all-sky mission.
------------------------- 3981 - TESS - exoplanet survey?
- TESS was
launched on April 18, 2018, aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket. During its five
years in space, TESS’s four 24 degrees by 24 degrees field-of-view CCD cameras
have successfully mapped greater than 93% of the universe.
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- To create
its sky map, TESS scans large portions of the sky known as sectors, with each
sector encompassing 24 by 96 degrees and taking approximately one month to
complete.
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- The size of
each sector is approximately one hand’s width and spans from the horizon to the
sky’s highest point, also called the zenith, with each full-frame image
consisting of 192 million pixels.
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- TESS’s
primary mission ended on July 4, 2020, during which time it was able to record
each sector once every 30 minutes. This timing has improved during its extended
mission with TESS now recording one sector almost 90 percent faster at 3
minutes and 20 seconds.
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- The
astronomers have more than 251 terabytes just for one of the main data
products, called full-frame images. That’s the equivalent of streaming 167,000
movies in full HD.
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- TESS
extracts parts of each full-frame image to make cutouts around specific cosmic
objects, more than 467,000 of them and together they create a detailed record
of changing brightness for each one. Astroomers use these files to produce
light curves, a product that graphically shows how a source’s brightness alters
over time.
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- TESS is
currently placed in a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth with its
farthest point (an apogee) at an approximate one-Moon distance from Earth. This
allows TESS to orbit the Earth twice for every one orbit of the Moon, meaning
it has a 2-to-1 orbital resonance with our Moon.
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- This type of orbit not only allows TESS an
unobstructed view of the heavens, but also keeps it free of the Van Allen
Belts, and it has been estimated the stability of this orbit could last at
least 10 years..
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- Along with
its impressive night sky map, TESS has also confirmed the existence of 330
exoplanets with 6,400 exoplanet candidates using the “transit method” to locate
and identify them.
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- Some of the
most notable exoplanet findings include the confirmed discovery of “TOI 700 d”
in January 2020, which is an Earth-sized world located within its star’s
habitable zone approximately 100 light-years. This was later complimented with
the confirmed discovery of “TOI 700 e” in January 2023, which is also an
Earth-sized world located in the star’s habitable zone.
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- Other key
exoplanet discoveries from TESS include 'GJ 367 b', which is a Mars-sized
exoplanet located approximately 31 light-years from Earth, and the
triple-planet system of “TOI 11”, which contains one super-Earth and two
mini-Neptunes and located approximately 205 light-years from Earth.
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- Aside from
exoplanets, TESS has also observed black holes and hundreds of supernovae. TESS completed its primary mission in July
2020 and officially started its first extended mission, which lasted until
September 2022. This was when NASA approved a second extended mission, which is
currently ongoing and expected to last until September 2025.
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- With TESS’s
orbit allowing it to observe the heavens through at least 2028, what new
science will it uncover and how many more new exoplanets will it discover?
Could it even be responsible for finding Earth 2.0? Only time will tell, and
this is why we do science!
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April 30, 2023 TESS - exoplanet survey? 3981
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--------------------- --- Tuesday, May 2, 2023
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