NASA's planet search satellite, TESS, locates its first exoplanet

NASA's planet search satellite, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), was launched last year to search for exoplanets, especially those that could potentially support life. The satellite will observe 400,000 stars in the sky and will select a target in the new star catalog of the TESS habitable zone.

The catalog contains a list of 1,822 stars in the TESS range, with planets the size of the Earth in orbit, whose planets receive an equivalent amount of radiation from their star to that of our Sun. This includes a group of 408 stars that have Earth-sized planets and similar radiation that can be observed in a single transit.

"Life can exist on all kinds of worlds, but the one we know today is ours, so it makes sense to start by looking for Earth-like planets," writes Lisa Kaltenegger, lead author and professor. of astronomy at the College of Arts and Arts. Science and director of the Carl Sagan Institute in Cornell, said in a statement. "This catalog is important for TESS because anyone working with the data wants to know which stars we can find the nearest Earth analogues."

And the search for TESS is already bearing fruit. This week, astronomers analyzing the TESS data announced they have discovered a planet the size of Saturn.

The first planetary discovery of TESS is the planet "Hot Saturn" TOI 197.01. This means that the planet is about the same size as Saturn but that it is near its star. It therefore has a very high temperature. In fact, this planet is so close to its star that it completes an orbit in just 14 days.

"This is the first bucket of water from the data sources we get from TESS," said Steve Kawaler, a professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, in a statement.

Researchers are already planning what other objects they could search for with TESS. "What's exciting, is that TESS is the only game in town for a while and the data is so good that we plan to try to do science that we did not have." thought, "said Kawaler. "Maybe we can also look at the very faint stars – the white dwarfs – which are my first love and represent the future of our solar and solar system."