Aerospace

{videobox}evHF_mnIdj4{/videobox}

How TESS - NASA's Newest Planet Hunter - Scans Nearly the Entire Sky

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS , is NASA's newest exoplanet mission. TESS will study 85 percent of the sky, which is area 350 times greater than what NASA's Kepler mission first observed, making TESS the first exoplanet mission to survey nearly the entire sky. Led by MIT, TESS will find thousands of new planets orbiting nearby stars. During its two year survey, TESS will watch a wide variety of stars, looking for signs of planets ranging from Earth-size to larger than Jupiter. Each of TESS's cameras has a 16.8-megapixel sensor covering a square 24 degrees wide - large enough to contain an entire constellation.