NASA's TESS spacecraft captures the image of "first light"

The entire photo, which TESS captured for a period of 30 minutes on August 7, shows a dozen constellations. It also presents small and large magellanic clouds, two irregular dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Above the small cloud of magellan is a globular cluster, while the immensely bright star of the left of the galaxies is the giant red variable star Mira R Doradus.

However, the really important parts of the TESS team's image are all stars that can potentially host previously unknown planets. According to TESS Senior Researcher George Ricker: "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. . "

The James Webb telescope (ie when it will be launched) and various ground-based telescopes will then use spectroscopy to measure the light passing through the atmosphere of the new planets that TESS discovers to find out more. NASA plans to determine their atmospheric compositions, masses and densities using spectroscopic techniques.

This "first light" image represents one of 26 sectors that TESS will monitor over the next two years. The spacecraft will observe one sector for 27 days each, the first half constituting the southern sky taking place during its first year.