Astronomers will also use the CfA’s KeplerCam on the 48-inch telescope and the Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph (TRES) at FLWO. The CfA will make follow-up observations of TESS targets using its MEarth telescopes, a pair of robotically controlled observatories, each comprising eight 40 cm telescopes, located at the Smithsonian’s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) outside Tucson, Ariz., and on Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. Water and other key molecules in its atmosphere can give hints about a planets’ capacity to harbor life. The brightness of these target stars will allow researchers to use spectroscopy, the study of the absorption and emission of light, to determine a planet’s mass, density, and atmospheric composition. TESS will concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away and 30 to 100 times brighter than Kepler’s targets.
“Everyone in the TESS Science Office is excited,” said Latham. “We can’t wait to get our hands on TESS light curves of new transiting planets!” Another goal is to foster communication and coordination among the TESS science team and the community. This program will include measuring the mass of 50 exoplanets with four times the radius of Earth or smaller. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft used the same method to spot more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, most of them orbiting faint stars 300 to 3,000 light-years awayĬfA astronomer David Latham serves as the project science director, and will oversee the TESS Follow-up Observing Program. Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its star, causing a periodic and regular dip in the star’s brightness. The spacecraft will be looking for a phenomenon known as a transit. Sixty days after launch, following tests of its instruments, TESS will begin its initial two-year mission. With a gravitational assist from the moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. TESS will lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Scientists believe such planets would be heavier than the Earth “We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers.”ĭozens of scientists, including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will play key roles in TESS follow-up and the science the telescope is expected to achieve.įollowing a successful March 15 review of the spacecraft’s launch readiness, TESS will be fueled and encapsulated within the payload fairing of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. “One of the biggest questions in exoplanet exploration is: If an astronomer finds a planet in a star’s habitable zone, will it be interesting from a biologist’s point of view?” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, which is leading the mission.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is undergoing final preparations in Florida for its April 16 launch to find undiscovered worlds around nearby stars, targets where future studies will assess their capacity to harbor life.
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