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The "first light" sent by TESS from the space. The new telescope will be responsible for finding new exoplanets after Kepler finishes his ten-year mission. NASA hopes that TESS will find new extraterrestrial planets throughout the universe similar to Earth. ( The NASA )
TESS, the newest space telescope that will take up the mantle and find exoplanets similar to Earth, has already released the first captured photo.
TESS starts sending data to Earth
NASA has published a detailed image of the southern sky featuring stars and other celestial objects, including previously identified exoplanets. The space telescope used the four wide-field cameras to capture the photo.
"In an ocean of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is throwing a wide net and will carry a host of promising planets for further study," said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division. . "This first light science image shows the capabilities of the TESS cameras and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth."
According to the space agency, the black lines in the imagery sent back to Earth by TESS come from the spaces between each camera detectors of the spacecraft. However, he was still able to capture parts of the constellations and small and large magellanic clouds. Two stars – Beta Gruis and R Doradus – are so bright that they have created long spikes of light in the photo.
"This part of the southern hemisphere of the sky includes more than a dozen stars that we know have planets in transit, according to previous studies by ground-based observatories," said George Ricker, principal investigator. from TESS.
The space telescope acquired the photo over a period of 30 minutes on Tuesday, August 4. It was the "first light" of the captured telescope a few months after its launch in space in April.
However, this is not the first time the new spacecraft has returned an image to Earth. Immediately after the launch, TESS performed a two second test exposure using one of its four cameras. The result is an equally impressive photo showing more than 200,000 stars in the southern sky.
Transmitting the exoplanet monitoring satellite, TESS is supposed to replace Kepler, a similar telescope that, in the space of nearly 10 years, has spotted more than 2,000 exoplanets orbiting distant stars. Kepler should retire any day now.
TESS Mission
Over the next two years, the Exoplanet Transit Investigation Satellite or TESS will examine the sky to detect transits or the sudden but steady fall into the darkness of the distant star that occurs when a planet passes in front of it. The spacecraft will spend two years monitoring 13 areas of the northern sky and 13 areas of the southern sky, covering 85% of the sky.
TESS must transmit new images to ground control every 13.7 days. The Deep Space Network receives the data from the spacecraft and returns them to Earth.
Meanwhile, the James Webb Space Telescope and other space / space observatories will use spectroscopy to learn more about the planets that TESS will find.
What is there? Our newest planet-hunting satellite, @NASA_TESS, published his first scientific image capturing much of the sky. With the help of its four cameras, the complete field of view of the satellite included parts of a dozen constellations. More: https://t.co/TCJ5BFpG6c pic.twitter.com/zJ1Bz5TspN – NASA (@NASA) September 17, 2018
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