Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
This article needs to be updated.(January 2022) |
Operator | NASA / MIT |
---|---|
COSPAR ID | 2018-038A |
SATCAT no. | 43435 |
Website | tess tess |
Mission duration | 2 years (planned) 6 years, 8 days (in progress) |
Spacecraft properties | |
Spacecraft | Explorer XCV |
Spacecraft type | Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite |
Bus | LEOStar-2/750[3] |
Manufacturer | Orbital ATK |
Launch mass | 362 kg (798 lb) [4] |
Dimensions | 3.7 × 1.2 × 1.5 m (12.1 × 3.9 × 4.9 ft) |
Power | 530 watts |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | 18 April 2018, 22:51:30 Falcon 9 Block 4 (B1045.1) |
Launch site | Cape Canaveral, SLC-40 |
Contractor | SpaceX |
Entered service | 25 July 2018 |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Geocentric orbit |
Regime | Highly elliptical orbit |
Perigee altitude | 108,000 km (67,000 mi) |
Apogee altitude | 375,000 km (233,000 mi) |
Inclination | 37.00° |
Period | 13.70 days |
TESS satellite mission patch Explorer program |
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS, Explorer 95 or MIDEX-7) is a
In the two-year primary mission, TESS was expected to detect about 1,250 transiting exoplanets orbiting the targeted stars, and an additional 13,000 orbiting stars not targeted but observed.[12] After the end of the primary mission around 4 July 2020, scientists continued to search its data for more planets, while the extended missions acquires additional data. As of 15 November 2023[update], TESS had identified 6,977 candidate exoplanets, of which 402 had been confirmed.[13]
The primary mission objective for TESS was to survey the brightest stars near the Earth for transiting exoplanets over a two-year period. The TESS satellite uses an array of wide-field cameras to perform a survey of 85% of the sky. With TESS, it is possible to study the mass, size, density and orbit of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of
Led by the
History
The concept of TESS was first discussed in 2005 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the
In July 2019, an Extended Mission 2020 to 2022 was approved.[28] and on 3 January 2020, the Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite reported the discovery of TOI-700 d, its first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet.
Mission overview
TESS is designed to carry out the first spaceborne
Orbital dynamics
TESS uses a novel highly elliptical orbit around the Earth with an apogee approximately at the distance of the Moon and a perigee of 108,000 km (67,000 mi). TESS orbits Earth twice during the time the Moon orbits once, a 2:1 resonance with the Moon.[31] The orbit is expected to remain stable for a minimum of ten years.
In order to obtain unobstructed imagery of both the
Science objectives
TESS's two-year all-sky survey would focus on nearby
The survey was broken up into 26 observation sectors, each sector being 24° × 96°, with an overlap of sectors at the ecliptic poles to allow additional sensitivity toward smaller and longer-period exoplanets in that region of the celestial sphere. The spacecraft will spend two 13.70-day orbits observing each sector, mapping the southern hemisphere of sky in its first year of operation and the northern hemisphere in its second year.[37] The cameras actually take images every 2 seconds, but all the raw images would represent much more data volume than can be stored or downlinked. To deal with this, cutouts around 15,000 selected stars (per orbit) will be coadded over a 2-minute period and saved on board for downlink, while full-frame images will also be coadded over a 30-minute period and saved for downlink. The actual data downlinks will occur every 13.70 days near perigee.[38] This means that during the 2 years, TESS will continuously survey 85% of the sky for 27 days, with certain parts being surveyed across multiple runs. The survey methodology was designed such that the area that will be surveyed, essentially continuously, over an entire year (351 observation days) and makes up about 5% of the entire sky, will encompass the regions of sky (near the ecliptic poles) which will be observable at any time of year with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).[39]
In October 2019, Breakthrough Listen started a collaboration with scientists from the TESS team to look for signs of advanced extraterrestrial life. Thousands of new planets found by TESS will be scanned for "technosignatures" by Breakthrough Listen partner facilities across the globe. Data from TESS monitoring of stars will also be searched for anomalies.[40]
Asteroseismology
The TESS team also plans to use a 30-minute observation cadence for full-frame images, which has been noted for imposing a hard
Extended missions
During the 27 month First Extended Mission, data collection was slightly changed:[43]
- A new set of target stars will be selected
- The number of stars monitored at 2-minute cadence was increased from 15,000 to 20,000 per observing sector.
- Up to 1000 stars per sector will be monitored at a new fast 20-second cadence.
- The full-frame image cadence will be increased from every 30 minutes to every 10 minutes.
- The pointings and gaps in coverage will be slightly different during the extended mission.
- Regions near the ecliptic will be covered.
During the second extended mission,[44] the full-frame image cadence will be further increased from every 10 minutes to every 200 seconds, number of 2-minute cadence targets reduced to ~8000 per sector, and number of 20-second cadence targets increased to ~2000 per sector. [45]
Launch
In December 2014, SpaceX was awarded the contract to launch TESS in August 2017,[46] for a total contract value of US$87 million.[47] The 362 kg (798 lb) spacecraft was originally scheduled to launch on 20 March 2018, but this was pushed back by SpaceX to allow additional time to prepare the launch vehicle and meet NASA launch service requirements.[48] A static fire of the Falcon 9 rocket was completed on 11 April 2018, at approximately 18:30 UTC.[49] The launch was postponed again from 16 April 2018,[7] and TESS was eventually launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the SLC-40 launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) on 18 April 2018.[8][9]
The Falcon 9 launch sequence included a 149-second burn by the first stage, followed by a 6-minute second stage burn. Meanwhile, the first-stage booster performed controlled-reentry maneuvers and successfully landed on the autonomous drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. An experimental water landing was performed for the fairing,[50] as part of SpaceX's attempt to develop fairing reusability.
After coasting for 35 minutes, the second stage performed a final 54-second burn that placed TESS into a supersynchronous transfer orbit of 200 × 270,000 km (120 × 167,770 mi) at an inclination of 28.50°.[50][51] The second stage released the payload, after which the stage itself was placed in a heliocentric orbit.
Spacecraft
In 2013, Orbital Sciences Corporation received a four-year, US$75 million contract to build TESS for NASA.[52] TESS uses an Orbital Sciences LEOStar-2 satellite bus, capable of three-axis stabilization using four hydrazine thrusters plus four reaction wheels providing better than three arcsecond fine spacecraft pointing control. Power is provided by two single-axis solar arrays generating 400 watts. A Ka-band dish antenna provides a 100 Mbit/s science downlink.[34][53]
Operational orbit
Once injected into the initial orbit by the Falcon 9
Project timeline
The first light image was made on 7 August 2018, and released publicly on September 17, 2018.[1][10][11][57]
TESS completed its commissioning phase at the end of July and the science phase officially started on 25 July 2018.[58]
For the first two years of operation TESS monitored both the southern (year 1) and northern (year 2) celestial hemispheres. During its nominal mission TESS tiles the sky in 26 separate segments, with a 27.4-day observing period per segment.[37] The first southern survey was completed in July 2019. The first northern survey finished in July 2020.
A 27-month First Extended mission ran until September 2022. A second extended mission will run approximately additional three years.
Instruments
The sole instrument on TESS is a package of four
The four telescopes in the assembly each have a 10.5-cm diameter lens entrance aperture, with a f/1.4 focal ratio, with a total of seven lenses in the optical train.[59]
Ground operations
The TESS ground system is divided between eight sites around the United States. These include
Stable light source for tests
One of the issues facing the development of this type of instrument is having an ultra-stable light source to test on. In 2015, a group at the University of Geneva made a breakthrough in the development of a stable light source. While this instrument was created to support ESA's CHEOPS exoplanet observatory, one was also ordered by the TESS program.[61] Although both observatories plan to look at bright nearby stars using the transit method, CHEOPS is focused on collecting more data on known exoplanets, including those found by TESS and other survey missions.[62]
Results
Current mission results as of 18 November 2022: 273 confirmed exoplanets discovered by TESS, with 4079 candidate-planets that are still awaiting confirmation or rejection as false positive by the scientific community.[63] TESS team partners include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, Orbital ATK, NASA's Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
C/2018 N1
TESS started science operations on 25 July 2018.
Pi Mensae
The first exoplanet detection announcement was on 18 September 2018, announcing the discovery of a super-Earth in the Pi Mensae system orbiting the star every 6 days, adding to a known Super-Jupiter orbiting the same star every 5.9 years.[65]
LHS 3844 b
On 20 September 2018, the discovery of an ultra-short period planet was announced, slightly larger than Earth, orbiting the red dwarf LHS 3844. With an orbital period of 11 hours, LHS 3844 b is one of the planets with the shortest known period. It orbits its star at a distance of 932,000 km (579,000 mi). LHS 3844 b is also one of the closest known exoplanets to Earth, at a distance of 14.9 parsecs.[66]
HD 202772 Ab
TESS's third discovered exoplanet is
HD 21749
On 15 April 2019, TESS' first discovery of an earth-sized planet was reported.
MAST Data collaboration
Data on exoplanet candidates continue to be made available at MAST.[69] As of 20 April 2019, the total number of candidates on the list was up to 335. Besides candidates identified as previously discovered exoplanets, this list also includes ten newly discovered exoplanets, including the five mentioned above. Forty-four of the candidates from Sector 1 in this list were selected for follow-up observations by the TESS Follow-Up Program (TFOP), which aims to aid the discovery of 50 planets with a planetary radius of R < 4 RE through repeated observations.[70] The list of candidate exoplanets continues to grow as additional results are being published on the same MAST page.
Changing to the Northern Sky
On 18 July 2019, after the first year of operation the southern portion of the survey was completed, it turned its cameras to the Northern Sky. As of this time it has discovered 21 planets and has over 850 candidate exoplanets.[71]
DS Tucanae Ab
On 23 July 2019, the discovery of the young exoplanet
Gliese 357
On 31 July 2019, the discovery of exoplanets around the M-type dwarf star
Count of exoplanets in 2019
As of September 2019, over 1000 TESS Objects of Interest (ToI) have been listed in the public database,[76] at least 29 of which are confirmed planets, about 20 of which within the stated goal of the mission of Earth-sized (<4 Earth radii).[77]
ASASSN-19bt
On 26 September 2019, it was announced that TESS did observe its first tidal disruption event (TDE), called ASASSN-19bt. The TESS data revealed that ASASSN-19bt began to brighten on 21 January 2019, ~8.3 days before the discovery by ASAS-SN.[78][79]
TOI-700
On 6 January 2020, NASA reported the discovery of
TOI-1338
The same day, the discovery of TOI-1338 b was announced, the first circumbinary planet discovered with TESS. TOI-1338 b is around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. It lies in a system 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The stars in the system make an eclipsing binary, which occurs when the stellar companions circle each other in our plane of view. One is about 10% more massive than the Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun's mass. TOI-1338 b's transits are irregular, between every 93 and 95 days, and vary in depth and duration thanks to the orbital motion of its stars. TESS only sees the transits crossing the larger star — the transits of the smaller star are too faint to detect. Although the planet transits irregularly, its orbit is stable for at least the next 10 million years. The orbit's angle to us, however, changes enough that the planet transit will cease after November 2023 and resume eight years later.[83]
HD 108236
On 25 January 2021, a team led by astrochemist Tansu Daylan, with the help of two high school interns as part of the Science Research Mentoring Program at Harvard & MIT, discovered and validated four extrasolar planets — composed of one super-Earth and three sub-Neptunes - hosted by the bright, nearby, Sun-like star HD 108236. The two high schoolers, 18 year old Jasmine Wright of Bedford High School in Bedford, Massachusetts, and 16 year old Kartik Pinglé of Cambridge Ringe And Latin School, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, are reported to be the youngest individuals in history to discover a planet, let alone four.[84][85]
TIC 168789840
On 27 January 2021, several news agencies reported that a team using TESS had determined that TIC 168789840, a stellar system with six stars in three binary pairs was oriented so astronomers could observe the eclipses of all the stars.[86][87][88][89][90] It is the first six star system of its kind.
Count of exoplanets in 2021
In March 2021, NASA announced that TESS found 2200 exoplanet candidates.[91] By the end of 2021, TESS had discovered over 5000 candidates.[92]
TOI-1231 b
On 17 May 2021, an international team of scientists, including researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of New Mexico, reported, and confirmed by a ground based telescope, the space telescope's first discovery of a Neptune-sized exoplanet, TOI-1231 b, inside a habitable zone. The planet orbits a nearby red dwarf star, 90 light-years away in the Vela constellation.[93]
Exoplanet search programs
The TESS Objects of Interest (TOI) are assigned by the TESS team[94] and the Community TOIs (CTOI) are assigned by independent researchers.[95] The primary mission of TESS produced 2241 TOIs.[94] Other small and large collaborations of researchers try to confirm the TOIs and CTOIs, or try to find new CTOIs.
Some of the collaborations with names that are searching exclusively for TESS planets are:
- The citizen science project Planet Hunters: TESS (PHT)[96]
- TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME)[97]
- The TESS-Keck Survey (TKS)[98]
- TESS Giants Transiting Giants (TESS GTG)[99]
Collaborations with currently a smaller amount of discovery papers:
The TESS community is also producing software and programs to help validate the planet candidates, such as TRICERATOPS,[102] DAVE,[103] Lightkurve,[104] Eleanor[105] and Planet Patrol.[106]
In popular culture
TESS is featured accurately in the 2018 film Clara.
See also
- ARIEL, 2028 exoplanet atmospheres observatory
- CHEOPS, 2019 exoplanet observatory
- CoRoT, 2006–2012 exoplanet observatory
- Kepler, 2009–2018 exoplanet observatory
- MOST, 2003–2019 asteroseismology and exoplanet observatory
- PLATO, 2026 exoplanet observatory
- SWEEPS, 2006 Hubble Space Telescope exoplanet survey
- List of transiting exoplanets
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The system, also called TIC 168789840, is the first known sextuple composed of three sets of eclipsing binaries, stellar pairs whose orbits tip into our line of sight so we observe the stars alternatively passing in front of each other.
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'Prior to the discovery of TIC 168789840, there were 17 known sextuple star systems according to the June 2020 update of the Multiple Star Catalog,' lead author Dr. Brian Powell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues wrote in their paper.
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The primary stars in all three binaries are all slightly bigger and more massive than the Sun and about as hot. The system, also called TIC 168789840, is located about 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
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But only one of the pairs could have any planets. Two of the system's binaries orbit extremely close to one another, forming their own quadruple subsystem. Any planets there would likely be ejected or engulfed by one of the four stars. The third binary is farther out, orbiting the other two once every 2,000 years or so, making it a possible exoplanetary haven.
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- S2CID 234763319.
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- ISSN 0004-6256.
- ISSN 0004-6256.
- Bibcode:2018ascl.soft12013L.
- ISSN 0004-6280.
- S2CID 248260172.
Further reading
- Ricker, George R.; et al. (24 October 2014). "Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite". Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems. 1 (1): 914320. S2CID 1342382.
- Stassun, Keivan (18 November 2014). TESS and Galactic Science (PDF). WFIRST Meeting. California Institute of Technology.
External links
- TESS twitter account by NASA
- TESS website by NASA Goddard
- TESS website by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- TESS discovered exoplanets by MIT
- TESS website Archived 26 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine by the Kavli Foundation
- Planet Hunters TESS: anyone can help classifying TESS data
- TESS listing of Southern Sky panoramas Archived 6 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine (July 18, 2019)
- TESS launch closeup, atop Falcon 9 rocket. APOD (April 21, 2018)
- Interactive 3D simulation of TESS's 2:1 lunar resonant orbit