Unbelievable first discoveries from NASA's new exoplankean craft: TESS

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So far, hundreds of candidate planets have been discovered in the data collected and published by the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), with eight confirmed by further measurements. Here are three of the most unique, interesting exoplanets.NASA / MIT / TESS

It's been almost a decade since NASA's Kepler mission first started. At the beginning of 2009, the Kepler spacecraft was observing hundreds of thousands of stars within our own galaxy and measuring the total amount of light for each of them and looking for minor changes. At the end of the mission, Kepler and his additional mission K2 have discovered thousands of new planets around the stars outside of ours, including a considerable number of potential living worlds that are large in the Earth.

If Kepler showed us that our galaxy is full of planets, then this is inheritance, TESS – Exoplanet Transit Satellite – they will reveal transit worlds around our closest stars. If there is a earthly world that is in front of our parent star compared to our visual line, TESS reveals it. For the first time we will be sensitive to the "Holy Grail" of the planet in our backyard.

The SpaceX Falcon 9, carrying the TESS spacecraft, rises on April 18, 2018 from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Air Force station in Cape Canaveral, Florida. TESS is NASA's successor to the Kepler and K2 mission and is aimed at finding exoplanets around the closest stars on Earth.Getty

Kepler's search was an incredible effort: the viewfinder was a narrow view that covered 3000 light-years. His main mission was to continually look at the same area for several years. Kepler circled more than 100,000 stars and sought systematic, periodic falls in the total amount of light that comes from every star. If one was discovered, the presence of the planet, with the size and period of falls corresponding to the radius and the orbital distance of the planet, is potentially marked.

TESS is different. Instead of looking at a narrow area of the sky, TESS examines the whole sky, by sector, in order to search for planets around the stars closest to us. If about 200 light-years from us are a planet-directed planet around any star, TESS will find it, reaching its radius and orbital distance. What's more, every discovery of the TESS, which gives us the planet, also gives us a system of candidates where future observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, can try to find possible signs of life.

NASA's TESS satellite will scan the entire sky in pieces that are 12 degrees across, from the galactic poles to the nearby galactic equator. Due to this geodetic strategy, the polar regions see more observation time, making TESS more sensitive to smaller and more distant planets in these systems.NASA / MIT / TESS

TESS began in April 2018 and began to search for new worlds. The first scientific data collection started in July; almost half a year later she published her first data. During its lifetime, TESS should find thousands of new planets around the various stars, from the large gaseous giants of Jupiter to small, rocky, earthly worlds.

With its first six sectors that were surveyed, there are some important achievements TESS:

more than 300 candidates,
8 certified planets,
including some who are giant planets,
and some that are barely larger than Earth.

But the numbers do not make these discoveries of justice. Looking at some of these discoveries in detail, we can appreciate what a phenomenal science can bring to us TESS.

Illustration of NASA's TESS satellite and its imaging capabilities crossing exoplanets.NASA

The first confirmed planet was Pi Mensae c, which circulates around a star that is very similar to ours. Only 10% more massive and 20% larger than our Sun, Pi Mensae is quite similar to our star, but its solar system must be very different. Pi Mensae c, which blocks a small part of its light, is remarkably close to its star, which circulates about 6.3 days. It is about twice as large as the Earth's radius and almost five times larger, which means that this is quite typical for the hot worlds between the size of the Earth and Neptune.

The number of planets discovered by Kepler has been ranked in size since May 2016, when the largest extraction of new exoplanets was released. The worlds of super-Earth / mini-Neptune are by far the most common, although virtually all of these worlds are probably somewhat similar to Neptune with large gas envelopes around them, not earthly, with a thin atmosphere.NASA Ames / W. Stenzel

But this is not typical; this is exceptional. In 2001, a large planet that disturbed the orbit of Pi Mensae: Pi Mensae b. It was one of the most massive planets ever discovered: more than 10 times the mass of Jupiter. Its orbit is very eccentric, more distant from Jupiter than the Sun in its farthest distance (5.54 AU), but is close to the transition to almost within the orbit of the Earth (1.21 AU) on its periastron.

When Pi Pi Tens reveals Pi Mensae c, this is the first time that in the same system we discovered a near and far planet with such different properties and orbits. The guiding theory is that nearby planets are formed in almost perfect circular orbits, but to create an eccentric Jupiter (or larger) planet, something disturbs it.

The Pi Mensae system is now most extensively known in this sense, and the secret of how such systems reach this configuration will surely be the subject of many research – and speculation – in the future.

Today, we know more than 3,500 certified exoplanets, of which more than 2,500 are found in Kepler's data. These planets are sizes larger than Jupiter to the smaller of the Earth. But due to the constraints on the size of Kepler and the duration of the mission, most planets of the Earth's size are very hot and close to the star. TESS has the same problem as the first planets it discovers: the advantage is that they have hot and tight orbits.NASA / Ames Research Center / Jessie Dotson and Wendy Stenzel; the missing earths of E. Siegel

It's the biggest discovery planet LHS 3884b, which is just a little larger than Earth in a 1.3-fold radius of our home world, but so close to its parent star that it complements the revolution every 11 hours. At a distance of 49 light-years from us, this world is so hot that its reverse side is loaded with pools of molten lava in the hottest parts. At least in theory, the world is so hot that the stone itself enters the liquid phase.

Although it is unlikely to have an atmosphere with these properties of mass and temperature, it could create thin on a permanent basis, depending on its chemical composition on or near the surface of the planet. Due to the characteristics of this system, it is an ideal candidate for measuring the absorption spectrum of the atmosphere. If it does, you should know what is being done as soon as you are examined with appropriate telescopes.

Candidate planets around the HD 21749 are perhaps the most interesting finds that are far from TESS and show us the solar system, which is unique among all that we have ever discovered.NASA / MIT / TESS

Most spectacularly, TESS gave us a near star looking at: HD 21749. Just 53 light-years away, this star is smaller and less massive than the Sun: about 70% is so large and massive. As a Class K star, planets circling around it should not be exposed to catastrophic rockets or tidal shields; if the world of the Earth is great at the right distance from this star, this would be an excellent opportunity for the world with life on it.

On New Year's Eve, the TESS group issued the document they predict the discovery of a planet circling around this star: HD 21749b, with a 36-day orbit and a 2.84-times the radius of the Earth. This world, slightly smaller than Neptune, was confirmed by further observations, which determined that its mass was 23.2 times greater than the mass of the Earth, making it smaller but more massive – and denser than Uranus or Neptune.

Using the first three months of publicly available data from the NASA TESS mission, scientists at MIT and elsewhere confirmed the new planet, HD 21749b – the third small planet that TESS has detected so far. HD 21749b circles around the star, the size of the sun, 53 light years away.NASA / MIT / TESS

This is interesting for many reasons. First of all, at these distances the temperatures should be warm, but not extremely hot: about 300 ° F (150 ° C). Second, this is the longest exoplanet known in the 100 light years of the Earth. And perhaps the most interesting thing is that there is a signal hint & nbsp; – and a possible candidate planet & nbsp; – which could also exist closer to the star in the HD 21749 system. An additional candidate, if confirmed, will have a period of 8 days and a radius of approximately the size of the Earth.

If it turns out that this planet exists, it would be the first world of the Earth to be perceived by TESS: the smallest that this new observatory has so far found.

An artist's presentation of a potential living exoplanet circling around a solar star. When it comes to living outside the earth, we have yet to discover our first inhabited world, and TESS brings us star systems that are likely to be our early candidates for its discovery.NASA Ames / JPL-Caltech

The ultimate goal of TESS is to find possible earths and star systems that can store rocky, potentially living worlds. Since TESS is optimized for browsing with the nearest stars, its greatest finds will be among the first targets for future, stronger observatories that will not only detect these worlds, but also measure their atmospheric content. If we are lucky, some of these worlds will feed molecules such as water, methane, carbon dioxide or even oxygen in their atmospheres.

This will not make you forget that these worlds are populated, but TESS brings us closer to finding the closest worlds, which can be the greatest hope of humanity in search of life outside our solar system. The worlds we have found so far are absolutely fascinating, and just a few months before the first mission, TESS can easily satisfy even the highest expectations for it. With the time when the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, TESS must provide us with many worlds that could be the best place to find our next big step towards our ultimate goal: finding a settled world.

If Kepler showed us that our galaxy is full of planets, then its succession, TESS – Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – will reveal transit worlds around our closest stars. If there is a earthly world that is in front of our parent star compared to our visual line, TESS reveals it. For the first time we will be sensitive to the "holy grail" of planets in our backyard.

With its first six sectors that were surveyed, there are some important achievements TESS:

more than 300 candidates,
8 certified planets,
including some who are giant planets,
and some that are barely larger than Earth.

But the numbers do not make these discoveries of justice. Looking at some of these discoveries in detail, we can appreciate what a phenomenal science can bring to us TESS.

Illustration of NASA's TESS satellite and its imaging capabilities crossing exoplanets.NASA

The most extreme planet we've discovered is LHS 3884b, which is just a little larger than Earth in 1.3 times the size of our home world, but so close to its parent star to complement the revolution every 11 hours. At a distance of 49 light-years from us, this world is so hot that its reverse side is loaded with pools of molten lava in the hottest parts. At least in theory, the world is so hot that the stone itself enters the liquid phase.

At the New Year's Eve, TESS released a document that announced the discovery of a planet circling around the star: HD 21749b, with a 36-day orbit and a 2.84 times the radius of the Earth. This world, which is slightly smaller than Neptune, was confirmed by further observations that determined that its mass was 23.2 times greater than the mass of the Earth, making it smaller but more massive – and denser – than Uranus or Neptune.

This is interesting for many reasons. First of all, at these distances, the temperatures should be warm, but not extremely hot: about 150 ° C. Secondly, this is the longest exoplanet known in the 100 light years of the Earth. And perhaps the most interesting thing is that there is a signal about the signal and the possible planet to the candidate, which could also exist closer to the star in the HD 21749 system. An additional candidate, if confirmed, will have a period of 8 days and a radius of approximately the size of the Earth.

If it turns out that this planet exists, it would be the first world of the Earth to be perceived by TESS: the smallest that this new observatory has so far found.