September 29, 2022
By Aahil
The first NASA mission to find a new exoplanet begins, mission experts are working on what they expect to be a sequence of missions that will be expanded to the spacecraft.
Scientists who work on this Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission announced the mission at the briefing on the 233rd annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society here on January 7.
They have already found three planets that are smaller than Neptune that orbit stars within 100 light years within their Solar System.
The most modern one of three, HD 21749b orbits a star located 53 light-years away with a mass estimated at 23 times the mass of Earth.
The briefing was attended by Chelsea Huang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) stated that the star it orbits could host an additional planet similar to a big Earth.
The information comes from data from the beginning of the year of TESS operations. The data covers four of the 26 sky regions that the spacecraft is expected to visit in the coming two years.
The most efficient targets Webb can analyze spectroscopically with great detail are vital, and they are the most brilliant targets that can be identified by TESS.
Riker believes that the extended mission will be the first of many to come for TESS. Spacecraft itself is in good condition, and has stability and performance of the camera that are superior to what was expected.