TESS – Astronomy Now

Exoplanet-hunter TESS captures razor-sharp ‘first light’ images

18 September 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite’s four cameras have captured a razor-sharp “first light” image of the southern sky, demonstrating the photographic prowess needed to hunt down planets around nearby stars.

TESS planet hunter snaps test photo showing 200,000 stars

18 May 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s planet-hunting TESS satellite has completed a gravity assist flyby of the moon and sent back an initial test image from one of its four cameras showing about 200,000 stars. Science operations are expected to begin in mid June.

NASA’s new planet-hunting satellite begins climb into science orbit

25 April 2018 Stephen Clark

Looping back near Earth for the first time since its launch one week ago, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite fired its thrusters early Wednesday to begin boosting its orbit toward the moon for a May 17 gravity assist maneuver that will help catapult the probe into its unique science orbit.

After “terrific” launch, TESS nears first major orbit-raising burn

23 April 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s new planet-hunting TESS observatory completed its first post-launch thruster firing Saturday, setting up for a big boost Wednesday that will send the spacecraft toward the moon for a flyby next month, the next maneuvers in a two-month process to reach the mission’s final science orbit in mid-June.

All-sky surveyor launched from Cape Canaveral on the hunt for exoplanets

19 April 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, built to find planets around other stars that are close enough for detailed follow-ups by future telescopes, launched Wednesday into a unique high-altitude orbit on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Exoplanet-hunting satellite arrives in Florida for April launch

18 February 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final testing, fueling and attachment to a Falcon 9 launcher for liftoff in mid-April, a delay of nearly one month to allow SpaceX additional time to prepare the rocket for the mission.

Potentially habitable super-Earth K2-3d observed transiting parent star

28 November 2016 Astronomy Now

A group of researchers has observed the first ground-based transit observation of K2-3d — a potentially Earth-like extrasolar planet supposedly within the habitable zone around a bright M-dwarf host star 147 light-years away — using the multi-band imager MuSCAT on the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory’s 1.88-metre telescope.

Distant star Kepler 11145123 is roundest object ever observed in nature

17 November 2016 Astronomy Now

A team of German researchers has succeeded in measuring the oblateness of a slowly rotating star with unprecedented precision using asteroseismology — the study of the oscillations of stars. The technique was applied to a hot and luminous star called Kepler 11145123 some 5,000 light-years away that is spherical to one part in 500,000.

Astrophysicists find triple star system with “hot Jupiter”

8 April 2016 Astronomy Now

Exoplanet KELT-4Ab, about one and a half times the size of Jupiter, orbits the main star of a three-star system every three days. The system’s other two stars orbit each other once every 30 years while simultaneously orbiting the main star — and the planet — once every 4,000 years. The triple star system lies about 685 light-years from Earth.

Planet with most eccentric orbit flashes astronomers with reflected light

19 March 2016 Astronomy Now

A team of researchers led by San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane were able to detect a signal of reflected light from a planet known as HD 20782 b — a “flash” of starlight bouncing off the planet’s atmosphere as it made its closest orbital approach to its parent star on the most eccentric, comet-like orbit yet seen.