TESS — Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Спутник наблюдения за транзитами экзопланет)- 19.04.18

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Chris G - NSF‏ @ChrisG_NSF 2 ч. назад

Woohoo! Go, @NASA_TESS (@TESSatMIT) go! Find us those near-Earth #exoplanets. Major props (<-- hehe, get it?) to @OrbitalATK, now @northropgrumman, for building such a sophisticated and fine-tuned propulsion system.

Luca Maltagliati‏ @LucaPlanets 12 ч. назад

The orbit adjust burns of @NASA_TESS were 10 times more precise than expected! It was so good that the spacecraft has fuel for >20 years of stable operations (!!)
#Exoplanets2

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:!:  

Chris B - NSF ретвитнул(а)

Eric Berger‏Подлинная учетная запись @SciGuySpace 33 мин. назад

The @NASA_TESS mission has been awfully quiet of late. I inquired today if anything was wrong. The totality of the reply I received is thus:

"NASA will be issuing an update on TESS tomorrow (Wednesday) by noon EDT. I will send you a link when it's live."

[tnt22]

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-spacecraft-continues-testing-prior-to-first-observations

July 11, 2018

NASA's TESS Spacecraft Continues Testing Prior to First Observations

After a successful launch on April 18, 2018, NASA's newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is currently undergoing a series of commissioning tests before it begins searching for planets. The TESS team has reported that the spacecraft and cameras are in good health, and the spacecraft has successfully reached its final science orbit. The team continues to conduct tests in order to optimize spacecraft performance with a goal of beginning science at the end of July.

Спойлер

Every new mission goes through a commissioning period of testing and adjustments before beginning science operations. This serves to test how the spacecraft and its instruments are performing and determines whether any changes need to be made before the mission starts observations.

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

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Last Updated: July 11, 2018
Editor: Rob Garner

[tnt22]

http://tass.ru/kosmos/5373656

Орбитальный телескоп TESS приступит к поиску экзопланет в конце июля

Космос | 14 июля, 11:07 UTC+3

В NASA заявили, что отстали от графика приблизительно на шесть недель

ВАШИНГТОН, 14 июля. /Корр. ТАСС Александр Пахомов/. Телескоп TESS, выведенный на орбиту 18 апреля, приступит к поиску потенциально пригодных для жизни планет в конце текущего месяца. Об этом сообщили журналистам представители NASA, подчеркнув, что, если все пойдет по плану, то проводимая сейчас специалистами проверка оборудования космической обсерватории завершится "довольно скоро".

"Команда, отвечающая за TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, Спутник по исследованию планет, проходящих перед своей звездой), проинформировала, что аппарат и его камеры находятся в хорошем состоянии после запуска. Телескоп достиг запланированной орбиты. Команда экспертов продолжает проводить проверку работоспособности оборудования с тем, чтобы телескоп приступил к научным исследованиям в конце июля", - отмечается в распространенном заявлении.

При этом NASA признало, что примерно на шесть недель отстало от графика. Первоначально предполагалось, что TESS начнет поиски экзопланет в середине июня.

Спойлер

Для вывода телескопа в космос с космодрома на мысе Канаверал (штат Флорида) была использована разработанная компанией SpaceX ракета-носитель Falcon 9. Сейчас TESS находится на эллиптической орбите, позволяющей совершать оборот вокруг Земли каждые 13,7 дня. Высота в перигее составляет 108 тыс. километров, в апогее - 373 тыс. км. Ожидается, что миссия аппарата, создание которого обошлось примерно в $340 млн, продлится по меньшей мере два года.

Как указал накануне вывода телескопа в космос Джордж Рикер, руководитель группы исследователей из Массачусетского технологического института, которая занимается реализацией данного проекта, "мы ожидаем, что TESS откроет ряд планет, химический состав атмосферы которых может представлять интерес с биологической точки зрения". В свою очередь представитель NASA Стивен Райнхарт заметил тогда, что эта обсерватория "открывает дверь для исследований на совершенно другом уровне". "Мы сможем изучать отдельные планеты и обсуждать различия между ними. Это новая эра в исследовании экзопланет", - сказал он.

TESS сфокусируется на звездах, находящихся на расстоянии до 300 световых лет от Земли. Предполагается, что телескоп, оснащенный четырьмя широкоугольными камерами, изучит более 200 тыс. звезд с целью выявить на их ярком фоне крохотные пятна, которые могут оказаться планетами. Всего ученые рассчитывают обнаружить несколько тысяч планет. Ими в дальнейшем более углубленно будут заниматься уже другие телескопы, в частности, James Webb с диаметром зеркала 6,5 метра, запуск которого в космос планируется на 30 марта 2021 года.

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[tnt22]

https://tess.mit.edu/news/nasas-tess-spacecraft-starts-science-operations/

NASA's TESS Spacecraft Starts Science Operations
2018-07-27

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has started its search for planets around nearby stars, officially beginning science operations on July 25, 2018. TESS is expected to transmit its first series of science data back to Earth in August, and thereafter periodically every 13.5 days, once per orbit, as the spacecraft makes it closest approach to Earth. The TESS Science Team will begin searching the data for new planets immediately after the first series arrives.

Спойлер

"I'm thrilled that our planet hunter is ready to start combing the backyard of our solar system for new worlds," said Paul Hertz, NASA Astrophysics division director at Headquarters, Washington. "With possibly more planets than stars in our universe, I look forward to the strange, fantastic worlds we're bound to discover."

TESS is NASA's latest satellite to search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. The mission will spend the next two years monitoring the nearest and brightest stars for periodic dips in their light. These events, called transits, suggest that a planet may be passing in front of its star. TESS is expected to find thousands of planets using this method, some of which could potentially support life.

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

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[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/07/27/tesss-planet-hunt-begins/

TESS's planet hunt begins
July 27, 2018 | Stephen Clark


Artist's concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA

NASA's newest observatory in space has started its search for planets around other stars, officials said Friday, as astronomers zero in on worlds that are ripe for research by follow-up missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite officially began a two-year science mission Wednesday, around three months after its blastoff fr om Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Спойлер

"I'm thrilled that our new planet hunter mission is ready to start scouring our solar system's neighborhood for new worlds," said Paul Hertz, NASA's astrophysics division director. "Now that we know there are more planets than stars in our universe, I look forward to the strange, fantastic worlds we're bound to discover."

Equipped with four 16.8-megapixel science cameras, TESS will look for blinks in light coming from relatively bright, nearby stars caused when planets pass in front of them. From those observations, astronomers can determine the size of each newly-discovered planet, then use other techniques such as radial velocity measurements to derive their masses.

TESS is a follow-up to NASA's Kepler mission, which is nearing the end of its mission searching for planets around other stars. Kepler — NASA's first mission dedicated to an exoplanet search — generally looked for worlds around more distant stars, resulting in 2,650 new confirmed planets beyond our solar system to date.

The TESS mission is geared to observe stars closer to the sun. In addition, Kepler has only pointed at certain parts of the sky, while TESS will take a broader look.

George Ricker, who leads the TESS science team at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said the exoplanet surveyor is a "finder scope" for the Webb telescope and huge ground-based observatories.

"You can go out on a dark night, and you can see 6,000 stars or so in the sky with your naked eye," Ricker said. "We're going to look at every single one of those stars."

Approximately 20 million stars will be visible by TESS's light-sensitive cameras, including targets up to a million times fainter than observable with the naked eye, Ricker said. Around 200,000 of those stars are "pre-selected" by the TESS science team for special emphasis because of their proximity and brightness.

Each of TESS's cameras house four custom-built red-sensitive CCD detectors designed and developed by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

"TESS is a survey machine, and it's going to find the very best planets for us to follow-up, and among that category are these small rocky planets, transiting small red dwarf stars," said Sara Seager, deputy science director on the TESS mission at MIT, in an interview before the mission's launch.


NASA's Transiting Exopanet Survey Satellite lifted off April 18 from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: SpaceX

Ricker said he expects TESS to find between 500 and 1,000 planets that are between one and three times the size of Earth. Up to 20,000 planets the size of Neptune or Jupiter could be discovered by TESS, he said.

That would grow the number of known planets beyond our solar system by factor of five or more, but it's not all about expanding the exoplanet catalog.

"The focus that TESS has on finding systems associated with bright stars means that they will be much easier to follow-up," Ricker said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. "Once you find that a transiting system exists, it's something that you'll want to come back to and study more and more as improved instruments, satellites and telescopes become available because this is going to be the benchmark for future research."

That's wh ere the James Webb Space Telescope becomes a crucial tool for astronomers seeking to learn more about the nature of faraway exoplanets. Scheduled for launch in early 2021, the oft-delayed Webb telescope will be able to probe the atmospheres of some of these worlds, learning about their chemical make-up and searching for evidence that the planets might be habitable.

Once launched, the huge, expandable observatory "will be able to look for characteristic signatures of materials in the atmospheres of those planets ... and something that's potentially a biogenic signature," Ricker told Spaceflight Now. "Of course, that takes a lot of care and a lot of work. TESS can only point the way to these are the best targets that you should be focusing on with Webb."

TESS will scan around 85 percent of the sky during its two-year prime mission, beginning with stars in the southern sky. In 2019, the observatory will shift its aim to the northern sky.

The mission will primarily look at M-dwarf stars, which are smaller and cooler than the sun, and make up the majority of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Also called red dwarfs, the stars that are TESS's focus have not been thoroughly investigated to determine whether they harbor their own solar systems.

Since its April 18 launch, TESS has maneuvered into a unique orbit in gravitational resonance with the moon that takes the spacecraft between distances of 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers) and 233,000 miles (376,000 kilometers) from Earth. In that orbit, TESS makes one loop around Earth about every two weeks.


This test image from one of the four cameras aboard the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite captures a swath of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy. TESS is expected to cover more than 400 times the amount of sky shown in this image when using all four of its cameras during science operations.
Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS

NASA released the first test image from one of TESS's four cameras in May, showing roughly 200,000 stars along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy.

The first set of science data from TESS will be downlinked to Earth in August, and NASA said astronomers will immediately begin analyzing the imagery. Software will help scientists cull the data and detect transit signals from exoplanets.

Built by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems — formerly known as Orbital ATK — TESS fired its thrusters multiple times, and used a gravity assist flyby of the moon May 17, to reach the $337 million mission's final orbit, a stable perch that requires no further rocket burns and which passes close enough to Earth to transmit full frame images from the craft's science cameras through a high-speed Ka-band downlink. The orbit also keeps TESS away from the damaging influence of the Van Allen radiation belts.

The spacecraft, which weighed less than a half-ton at launch, carries enough fuel to continue operating up to 20 or 30 years, Ricker said in an interview before TESS's launch. That assumes NASA funding and spacecraft parts remain robust.

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[tnt22]

https://ria.ru/science/20180730/1525585496.html

Телескоп TESS официально начал поиски "двойников Земли"
13:24 30.07.2018

МОСКВА, 30 июл – РИА Новости. Орбитальная обсерватория TESS успешно прошла все проверки инструментов и приступила к наблюдениям за самыми яркими звездами Галактики, рядом с которыми могут скрываться полноценные двойники Земли, сообщает НАСА.

"Я невероятно рад тому, что наш новый "охотник за планетами" начал "прочесывать" Галактику в поисках пока неизвестных миров. Сейчас мы хорошо понимаем, что планет во Вселенной больше, чем звезд, и я с нетерпением ожидаю открытия крайне причудливых и просто странных миров", — заявил Пол Герц (Paul Hertz), глава Астрофизического подразделения НАСА.

Спойлер

Телескоп TESS был запущен в апреле этого года в качестве замены для его знаменитого предшественника, орбитальной обсерватории "Кеплер", открывшей тысячи экзопланет за восемь лет работы. Запасы топлива на его борту сейчас подходят к концу, и ученые ожидают, что он окончательно прекратит наблюдения в самое ближайшее время.

В отличие от него, TESS будет следить не за одним участком неба, как это делал "Кеплер" в первые четыре года работы на орбите, а за разными уголками космоса, где находятся интересные ученым звезды и планеты.

Еще одним новшеством станет то, что TESS будет следить не за солнцеподобными, а за более яркими звездами, о планетах которых астрономы сегодня практически ничего не знают. Их "перепись", как надеются ученые, покажет, как часто могут формироваться аналоги Земли у более крупных и ярких светил, и насколько вероятно зарождение жизни на их поверхности.

Как и "Кеплер", TESS будет открывать новые планеты, отыскивая периодические колебания в яркости звезд, свидетельствующие о том, что их свет временно загородила одна или несколько планет.

Подобная методика позволяет достаточно быстро и точно открывать планеты, близко расположенные к звездам, однако у нее есть и несколько минусов. К примеру, она не приспособлена для поисков очень небольших и далеких планет, совершающих один виток вокруг светила за несколько сотен лет, и она не позволяет точно определить массу открытых экзомиров.

По этой причине все самые интересные открытия TESS будут дополнительно изучены крупнейшими наземными телескопами, способными открывать планеты по сдвигам в спектре их звезд, и строящейся орбитальной обсерваторией "Джеймс Уэбб", которая заменит "Хаббл" в начале 2020 годов.

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На прошлой неделе, как отмечает Герц, все проверки TESS были успешно завершены, и сейчас телескоп начал вести научные наблюдения. Первые снимки и данные будут переданы на землю в первых числах августа, и ученые сразу же приступят к поиску следов экзопланет внутри них.

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Tom Barclay‏Подлинная учетная запись @mrtommyb 2 ч. назад

In the first year, the @NASA_TESS orbital period ranges from 12.9-14.5 days. The sector durations range from 25.7 to 29.0 days. We are currently in one of the longest duration orbits.

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-spacecraft-starts-science-operations

July 27, 2018

NASA's TESS Spacecraft Starts Science Operations


An artist's illustration of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has started its search for planets around nearby stars, officially beginning science operations on July 25, 2018. TESS is expected to transmit its first series of science data back to Earth in August, and thereafter periodically every 13.5 days, once per orbit, as the spacecraft makes it closest approach to Earth. The TESS Science Team will begin searching the data for new planets immediately after the first series arrives.

Спойлер

"I'm thrilled that our new planet hunter mission is ready to start scouring our solar system's neighborhood for new worlds," said Paul Hertz, NASA Astrophysics division director at Headquarters, Washington. "Now that we know there are more planets than stars in our universe, I look forward to the strange, fantastic worlds we're bound to discover."

TESS is NASA's latest satellite to search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. The mission will spend the next two years monitoring the nearest and brightest stars for periodic dips in their light. These events, called transits, suggest that a planet may be passing in front of its star. TESS is expected to find thousands of planets using this method, some of which could potentially support life.


(video 1:34)
Animation showing how TESS will observe the sky. TESS will watch each observation sector for at least 27 days, before rotating to the next one, covering first the southern then the northern hemisphere to build a map of 85 percent of the sky.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

Media contact: Claire Saravia
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Last Updated: July 27, 2018
Editor: Rob Garner

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https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-built-and-operated-planet-seeking-spacecraft-begins-multi-year-mission

Northrop Grumman-Built and Operated Planet-Seeking Spacecraft Begins Multi-Year Mission

First science-quality images taken using onboard cameras
August 02, 2018

Dulles, Va. – Aug. 2, 2018 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) announced that NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has successfully reached its desired stable orbit and begun science operations. The spacecraft was built and operated by Northrop Grumman. The TESS spacecraft instrument is the set of four wide-field cameras designed and built by MIT and MIT Lincoln Lab. The principal goal of the TESS mission is to use its four wide-field cameras to detect planets around bright host stars in the solar neighborhood so that detailed characterizations of the planets and their atmospheres can be performed through follow-up observations from telescopes on Earth and in space. As the first-ever satellite to perform an exoplanet survey of nearly the entire sky, TESS will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to Jupiter-sized, orbiting a wide range of stellar types at various orbital distances.

Спойлер

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was designed, manufactured and tested by Northrop Grumman in the company's Dulles, Virginia, satellite manufacturing facility. The company is also responsible for handling mission operations for the observatory.

The TESS spacecraft was designed, manufactured and tested by Northrop Grumman at the company's satellite manufacturing facility in Dulles. The company is also responsible for handling mission operations for the observatory. TESS was launched April 18, 2018, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. After launch, the observatory went through a series of tests and began preparation for a series of in-space maneuvers, including a lunar gravity assist, to reach its targeted highly-elliptical orbit. This lunar flyby was executed May 17 and the final period-adjustment maneuver was performed May 29.

"The TESS observatory is in excellent condition after completing the journey to its final orbit," said Steve Krein, vice president, science and environmental satellite programs, Northrop Grumman. "TESS is another example of our ability to deliver successful scientific space missions that shape our knowledge of the known universe. We are proud to provide critical mission operations for TESS as it continues a historic journey to identify new planets outside our solar system."

The four TESS cameras developed by MIT project partners are integrated with Northrop Grumman's LEOStar-2™ bus, a flight-proven and flexible satellite platform that accommodates a wide variety of missions. The company has several other satellites in production for upcoming NASA missions including the Earth science ICESat-2 and Landsat-9 satellites and the JPSS-2, -3 and -4 weather spacecraft which use the larger LEOStar-3™ bus, as well as the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) LEOStar-2 satellite to be launched later this year. 

TESS is a NASA astrophysics explorer mission led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners besides Northrop Grumman include NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

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[Александр Бойков]

tnt22 пишет:
Подобная методика позволяет достаточно быстро и точно открывать планеты, близко расположенные к звездам, однако у нее есть и несколько минусов. К примеру, она не приспособлена для поисков очень небольших и далеких планет, совершающих один виток вокруг светила за несколько сотен лет, и она не позволяет точно определить массу открытых экзомиров.

Самый большой минус, то что угол зрения камер должен совпадать с плоскостью орбиты экзопланеты. Какова вероятность???

[Пел Лин]

Вероятность  p ≈ 0,0046(Rзв./Rсолнц)(1ае./ a)

a большая полуось планеты
1 ае. одна астрономическая единица
Rсолни   Rзв   радиусы звезды и Солнца

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NASA's TESS Catches a Comet

NASA Goddard

Опубликовано: 6 авг. 2018 г.

This video is compiled from a series of images taken on July 25 by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. The angular extent of the widest field of view is six degrees. Visible in the images are the comet C/2018 N1, asteroids, variable stars, asteroids and reflected light from Mars. TESS is expected to find thousands of planets around other nearby stars.

(1:36)

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NASA_TESS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_TESS 21 ч. назад

TESS Mission Update: Successfully downlinked through @NASASCaN #DSN the first 2 weeks of @NASA_TESS science data! Downlink of a full orbit took ~1.25 hours to dump ~53GB of data.

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NASA_TESS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_TESS 9 ч. назад

.@NASA_TESS will return to science observing mode until its next pass by Earth again at perigee on August 20th. This will be the next downlink of science data. TESS will process ~68 megabytes of data per second collected by the cameras onboard.

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NASA_TESS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_TESS 18 ч. назад

The unique @NASA_TESS orbit has the spacecraft approach Earth close every several weeks as we downlink our data. It allows people like Peter Birtwhistle @J95_Peter from Great Shefford Observatory (http://www.birtwhistle.org.uk ) in West Berkshire, England to capture a picture of TESS!

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Michael Brown‏ @MJIBrown 11 ч. назад

Early TESS at #iau2018



11 ч.11 часов назад

So far so good with TESS. #IAU2018



11 ч.11 часов назад

Early TESS light curves. #iau2018

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NASA_TESS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_TESS 8 ч. назад

.@NASA_TESS's Post-Launch Assessment Review (PLAR) was successful today! This @NASA review evaluated readiness of the spacecraft systems to proceed with routine operations. TESS is performing great on orbit and continues to send back exoplanet science data for further analysis!

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-shares-first-science-image-in-hunt-to-find-new-worlds

Sept. 17, 2018

NASA's TESS Shares First Science Image in Hunt to Find New Worlds


The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) took this snapshot of the Large Magellanic Cloud (right) and the bright star R Doradus (left) with just a single detector of one of its cameras on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The frame is part of a swath of the southern sky TESS captured in its "first light" science image as part of its initial round of data collection.
Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS
More TESS "first light" multimedia

NASA's newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is now providing valuable data to help scientists discover and study exciting new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Part of the data from TESS' initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the spacecraft's wide-field cameras. This "first light" science image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets.

Спойлер

Download high-resolution versions of this and other TESS "first light" images from the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS
More TESS "first light" multimedia

"In a sea of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is casting a wide net and will haul in a bounty of promising planets for further study," said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This first light science image shows the capabilities of TESS' cameras, and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth."

TESS acquired the image using all four cameras during a 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The black lines in the image are gaps between the camera detectors. The images include parts of a dozen constellations, from Capricornus to Pictor, and both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own. The small bright dot above the Small Magellanic Cloud is a globular cluster — a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars — called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae because of its location in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. Two stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, are so bright they saturate an entire column of pixels on the detectors of TESS's second and fourth cameras, creating long spikes of light.

"This swath of the sky's southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories," said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.



The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) captured this strip of stars and galaxies in the southern sky during one 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. Created by combining the view from all four of its cameras, this is TESS' "first light," from the first observing sector that will be used for identifying planets around other stars. Notable features in this swath of the southern sky include the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and a globular cluster called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae. The brightest stars in the image, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, saturated an entire column of camera detector pixels on the satellite's second and fourth cameras. Drag the slider back and forth to see the labeled and unlabeled versions of the image.
Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS
Download labeled image
Download unlabeled image
More TESS "first light" multimedia

TESS's cameras, designed and built by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, and the MIT Kavli Institute, monitor large swaths of the sky to look for . Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its star as viewed from the satellite's perspective, causing a regular dip in the star's brightness.

TESS will spend two years monitoring 26 such sectors for 27 days each, covering 85 percent of the sky. During its first year of operations, the satellite will study the 13 sectors making up the southern sky. Then TESS will turn to the 13 sectors of the northern sky to carry out a second year-long survey.

MIT coordinates with Northrop Grumman in Falls Church, Virginia, to schedule science observations. TESS transmits images every 13.7 days, each time it swings closest to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network receives and forwards the data to the TESS Payload Operations Center at MIT for initial evaluation and analysis. Full data processing and analysis takes place within the Science Processing and Operations Center pipeline at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, which provides calibrated images and refined light curves that scientists can analyze to find promising exoplanet transit candidates.

TESS builds on the legacy of NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which also uses transits to find exoplanets. TESS's target stars are 30 to 300 light-years away and about 30 to 100 times brighter than Kepler's targets, which are 300 to 3,000 light-years away. The brightness of TESS' targets make them ideal candidates for follow-up study with spectroscopy, the study of how matter and light interact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=evHF_mnIdj4
(video 1:34)
This animation shows how the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will study 85 percent of the sky in 26 sectors. The spacecraft will observe the 13 sectors that make up the southern sky in the first year and the 13 sectors of the northern sky in the second year.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio
TESS "first light" multimedia

The James Webb Space Telescope and other space and ground observatories will use spectroscopy to learn more about the planets TESS finds, including their atmospheric compositions, masses and densities.

TESS has also started observations requested through the TESS Guest Investigator Program, which allows the broader scientific community to conduct research using the satellite.

"We were very pleased with the number of guest investigator proposals we received, and we competitively sel ected programs for a wide range of science investigations, from studying distant active galaxies to asteroids in our own solar system," said Padi Boyd, TESS project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "And of course, lots of exciting exoplanet and star proposals as well. The science community are chomping at the bit to see the amazing data that TESS will produce and the exciting science discoveries for exoplanets and beyond."

TESS launched fr om NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 18 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and on May 17 to head toward its science orbit. TESS started collecting scientific data on July 25 after a period of extensive checks of its instruments.

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

By Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Last Updated: Sept. 17, 2018
Editor: Rob Garner

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https://ria.ru/science/20180918/1528836978.html

Телескоп TESS передал на Землю первые "научные" снимки
17:20 18.09.2018 (обновлено: 17:23 18.09.2018)


© NASA / MIT/TESS

МОСКВА, 18 сен – РИА Новости. Орбитальная обсерватория TESS передала на Землю первые "научные" снимки, полученные в рамках своеобразной "переписи" всех планет Млечного Пути. Фотографии и прочие данные были опубликованы на сайте НАСА.

"Благодаря TESS, у нас появилась возможность забросить сеть в "море звезд", кишащее бесчисленным множеством еще не открытых и неизведанных миров. Я уверен, что он откроет огромное число новых планет. Первые фотографии, полученные камерами TESS, на деле показывают, что ему под силу найти полноценную копию Земли", — заявил Пол Герц (Paul Hertz), глава Астрофизического подразделения НАСА.

Спойлер

Телескоп TESS был запущен в апреле этого года в качестве замены для его знаменитого предшественника, орбитальной обсерватории "Кеплер", открывшей тысячи экзопланет за восемь лет работы. Запасы топлива на его борту сейчас подходят к концу, и ученые ожидают, что он окончательно прекратит наблюдения в самое ближайшее время.

В отличие от него, TESS будет следить не за одним участком неба, как это делал "Кеплер" в первые четыре года работы на орбите, а за разными уголками космоса, где находятся интересные ученым звезды и планеты.

Еще одним новшеством станет то, что TESS будет следить не за солнцеподобными, а за более яркими звездами, о планетах которых астрономы сегодня практически ничего не знают. Их "перепись", как надеются ученые, покажет, как часто могут формироваться аналоги Земли у более крупных и ярких светил, и насколько вероятно зарождение жизни на их поверхности.

Как и "Кеплер", TESS будет открывать новые планеты, отыскивая периодические колебания в яркости звезд, свидетельствующие о том, что их свет временно загородила одна или несколько планет.

Подобная методика позволяет достаточно быстро и точно открывать планеты, близко расположенные к звездам, однако у нее есть и несколько минусов. К примеру, она не приспособлена для поисков очень небольших и далеких планет, совершающих один виток вокруг светила за несколько сотен лет, и она не позволяет точно определить массу открытых экзомиров.

По этой причине все самые интересные открытия TESS будут дополнительно изучены крупнейшими наземными телескопами, способными открывать планеты по сдвигам в спектре их звезд, и строящейся орбитальной обсерваторией "Джеймс Уэбб", которая заменит "Хаббл" в начале 2020 годов.

Сейчас TESS начал официальную работу в "обзорном" режиме, в рамках которого он проведет последующие два года, непрерывно наблюдая за различными крупными секторами ночного неба на протяжении примерно месяца. В общей сложности он покроет 85% от общей площади небесной сферы, и получит, как надеются ученые, достаточное количество данных для открытия первых полноценных двойников Земли и проведения почти полной "переписи" планет нашей Галактики.

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