READ MORE: NASA astronaut drops Queen’s a line from space Most of Tess’ targets will be cool, common red dwarf stars, thought to be rich breeding grounds for planets.

While Kepler has focused on stars thousands of light-years away, Tess will concentrate on our stellar neighbours, dozens or hundreds of light-years away. Until about 25 years ago, the only known planets were in our own solar system, noted NASA’s director of astrophysics, Paul Hertz. That’s a lot considering the first one popped up barely two decades ago. The total exoplanet census currently stands at more than 3,700 confirmed, with another 4,500 on the not-yet-verified list. Unlike Tess, Kepler could only scour a sliver of the sky. Tess is the successor to NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, on its last legs after discovering a few thousand exoplanets over the past nine years.Īstronomers anticipate more than doubling Kepler’s confirmed planetary count of more than 2,600, once Tess’ four wide-view cameras begin scientific observations in early summer. Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: 'Tess will tell us where to look at and when to look,' said the mission's chief scientist, George Ricker of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. READ MORE: NASA gets set to launch its newest planet-hunter, TESS Hundreds of thousands of stars will be scrutinized, with the expectation that thousands of exoplanets – planets outside our own solar system – will be revealed right in our cosmic backyard.

The satellite – the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or Tess – will scan almost the entire sky for at least two years, staring at the closest, brightest stars in an effort to find and identify any planets around them. Tess rode a SpaceX Falcon rocket through the evening sky, aiming for an orbit stretching all the way to the moon. NASA‘s Tess spacecraft embarked Wednesday on a quest to find new worlds around neighbouring stars that could support life. Send this page to someone via email email.

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