NASA’s planet-hunting Tess spacecraft to launch on April 16

Look up at the sky tonight. Every star you see plus hundreds of thousands, even millions more will come under the intense stare of NASA’s newest planet hunter. Set to lift off early next week, the Tess spacecraft will prowl for planets around the closest, brightest stars. These newfound worlds eventually will become prime targets for future telescopes looking to tease out any signs of life.

It will be the most extensive survey of its kind from orbit, with Tess, a galactic scout, combing the neighborhood as never before. “We’re going to look at every single one of those stars,” said the mission’s chief scientist George Ricker of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scientists expect Tess to find thousands of exoplanets — the term for planets outside our solar system.

“All astronomers for centuries to come are really going to focus on these objects,” Ricker said. “This is really a mission for the ages.” NASA’s astrophysics director, Paul Hertz, said missions like Tess will help answer whether we’re alone — or just lucky enough to have “the best prime real estate in the galaxy.” Tess — short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — is the heir apparent to the wildly successful Kepler Space Telescope , the pioneer of planetary census. Kepler’s fuel tank is running precariously low after nine years of flight, and NASA expects it to shut down within several months.

Source:indianexpress.com