Science AMA Series: We’re NASA, MIT and Kepler scientists excited about
the launch of our newest planet hunter, TESS. AMA!
Abstract
We’re finding planets around other stars! So far we have discovered
thousands of these exoplanets with missions like Kepler and K2. Today
we’re at Kennedy Space Center eagerly awaiting the launch of NASA’s
newest planet hunter. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS
mission, will search nearly the entire sky looking for tiny dips in the
light from Earth’s closest neighborhood stars that may indicate planets
passing in front of the stars. TESS will make a catalog of thousands of
worlds for us to study in more detail with future missions like the
James Webb Space Telescope. TESS will fly in an orbit that completes two
circuits around the Earth for every orbit of the Moon. This special
orbit will allow TESS’s cameras to monitor each patch of sky for nearly
a month at a time. We are: Natalia Guerrero: I’m a researcher in the
TESS Science Office at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and
Space Research. I measured the TESS camera performance and will lead the
team identifying exoplanets and other interesting astrophysical
phenomena in the TESS data for further observation by other telescopes.
Elisa V. Quintana: I’m an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md., where I work on the TESS and WFIRST missions.
I study exoplanets in extreme environments and am looking forward to
finding new ones with TESS. Stephen Rinehart: I’m the project scientist
for the TESS mission. I help make sure that the mission will be able to
do the great science that was proposed, and I’m excited about all the
great science that astronomers will be able to do with data from TESS!
And, I enjoy giving snarky answers to questions on reddit. Diana
Dragomir: I’m an astronomer at MIT. I study planets around other stars
(exoplanets), especially those smaller than Neptune. My research uses
data from many telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope,
Spitzer, the Canadian MOST space telescope and the Las Cumbres
Observatory network. Sam Quinn: I’m an astronomer at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I hunt for exoplanets and
use their observed properties to study how they form, evolve, and
migrate (yes, migrate!). My role in the TESS Science Office is to help
organize follow-up observations of TESS planets with ground-based
telescopes to measure their masses and characterize their host stars.
Learn more about TESS at www.nasa.gov/tess Follow us on @NASA_TESS to
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