NASA’s TESS planet-hunter discovers 5,000 possible alien worlds in less than 4 years
NASA scientists who are seeking new planets and their data with help of the organization’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have finally found a trace of 5000 possible alien worlds before the completion of four years of the mission.
The operation just hit a major discovery milestone, after the satellite brought into light around 5000 of what the team calls — TESS Objects of Interest (TOI). The TOI includes exoplanet candidates and other intriguing signals. Astronomers are studying the objects in more detail with different instruments in order to better understand what TESS may have discovered.
Michelle Kunimoto, a postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement that last year, around this time, TESS found just over 2,400 TOIs. However, today TESS has reached more than twice that number.
MIT scientists are leading the TESS mission and Kunimoto is leading a project called the Faint Star Search that has contributed many of the recently added TOIs. “I’m excited to see thousands more in the years to come!” the postdoc added to her statement.
TESS was launched in April 2018. Since then, around 176 TOI’s have been confirmed as planets. As it takes a lot of observation time to confirm the exoplanet candidates, therefore after initially spotting a TOI, scientists are relying on candidate detection before continuing further research.
For example, TESS’ predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, has identified more than 2000 planet candidates that are yet to be confirmed, despite completing its observations in 2013. The mission’s data includes more than 2,700 confirmed planets.
After TESS was launched, it was planned to be on a two-year mission, during the first half of which the satellite was supposed to pan across the Southern Hemisphere. In the second half, the satellite would have been sent to the Northern Hemisphere. In July 2020, the team decided to expand the spacecraft mission and repeat the previous pattern. Scientists are expecting to continue observing through it till at least 2025.
Since TESS spends around one month at a time observing small bright stars in each patch of sky, it is best suited to discovering hot planets close to their stars, since these objects tend to orbit the fastest. The mission’s discoveries have so far included multiple planets where a year just equals only 16 Earth hours.
Some other discoveries made by TESS include a set of five planets orbiting in rhythm, dozens of additional candidates, and TOIs found during the prime mission. Katharine Hesse, TOI manager at MIT, said in the statement that she is excited to see how many multi-planet systems they can find during the rest of the extended mission and in upcoming years with TESS.
Ms Kalinga