Planet
Hunter: TESS
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be
launched in 2017 as an Astrophysics Explorer mission. This satellite will be an
Explorer class planet finder. As the first ever spaceborne all-sky transit
survey, TESS will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants that
orbit around their bright host star in the solar neighborhood. The mission goal
is to find detailed characterizations of these planets and determine their
atmospheres.
NASA will launch TESS from Cape Canaveral, Florida
in August of 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and will achieve a unique high
altitude orbit according to the mission’s top scientist, George Ricker. The
satellite will carry four wide field-of-view 16.8 megapixel cameras to cover
400 times the area of the sky seen by Kepler. In its two year mission TESS will
be circle nearby stars and look for planets. Part of the mission is a follow up
of observations from Earth to determine whether the alien worlds might be
suitable for life.
TESS is expected to monitor more than 500,000 stars
during its mission, searching for temporary fluctuations in brightness caused
by planetary transits. Transits occur when a planet’s orbit carries it directly
in front of its host star as viewed from Earth. It should be able to catalog
more than 3,000 transiting exoplanet candidates. This would include 500
Earth-sized and super-Earth sized planets as well as smaller rocky ice planets
in the ‘goldilocks’ or habitable zone. It is hoped that these observations will
refine the measurements of the planet masses, sizes, densities, and atmospheric
properties.
This will be the first ever spaceborne all-sky
transit survey which means that the search for exoplanets is heating up, and it
appears that Earth’s scientists have no intention of slowing down. Our sun is a
Class G star – or a yellow-white main sequence star. TESS will be able to detect
the variances in a star’s brightness and will be looking for Class M stars (or
suns) that are a bit cooler than our own sun. Class M stars are reddish stars 2
to 3 times more abundant as solar type stars. How many of these suns will we
actually find? What are the chances of finding another planet similar to Earth?
What are the odds of finding a planet that supports any type of life? I, for
one, am very curious to see what is out there. Aren’t you?
My sources: NASA.gov, tess.gfc.nasa.gov,
en.wikipedia.org, space.mit.edu, spaceflightnow.com, www.kavlifoundation.org,
www.universetoday.com,
and www.stsci,edu
.
