First alien world discovered by TESS telescope

Launched into space this April, the TESS telescope provided Earth with data from the completed 27-day observation period. Researchers in data spotted candidate for first exoplanet found thanks to instrument.

On July 25, the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) telescope began searching for exoplanets. The telescope is to focus on the search for exoplanets wokóstars relatively close to the Sun. Researchers hope that someóre of them will be close enough to Earth to be studied in depth by available instruments.

The data from the completed observations of the first sector of the sky have recently reached Earth. Some of the data includes detailedó³ image of the southern sky taken with all four of the Space Telescope’s broadband cameras.

– In a sea of stars filled with new worlds, TESS casts a wide net, thanks to which itórej catch mnóa hundred promising planets for further study. This first scientific image shows the capabilities of the TESS telescope and that the mission will realize itsój incredible potential in the search for a second Earth,” said Paul Hertz of NASA.

– This conój of the southern sky includes more than a dozen stars, about których we know based on previous studies from observatorióin terrestrial that they have planetary – said George Ricker, head of theówny scientist of the TESS project.

Cameras mounted on the TESS telescope monitor vast areas of the sky in search of transitóin planets, a situation where a planet passes in front of its star, as seen from the perspective of a satellite, causing regular decreases in the star’s brightness. TESS will spend two years monitoring 26 such sectorsów. Each sector will be observed for 27 days, which together will give 85 percent of the sky. In its first year of operation, the telescope will study 13 sectorsóin making up the southern sky. Then TESS zwróci to the 13th sectoróIn póof the northern sky.

The telescope sends data to Earth every 13.7 days, which is every time it gets closest to the planet. In data sent to Earth, scientists have spotted a previously unknown exoplanet orbiting around theóThe star pi Mensae, known róalso as HD 39091. The star is a ¿ólty dwarf and is located nearly 60 light-years from Earth in the constellation GóTable ry.

The @NASA_TESS team is excited to announce the mission's first candidate planet — a super-Earth around the bright star Pi Mensae, nearly 60 light-years away. The planet orbits every 6.3 days. The discovery is now being reviewed by other scientists to validate it. Stay tuned!

In earlier studies, scientists spotted wokół this star of a gas giant about 10 times larger than Jupiter. The planet was named pi Mensae b. It has a rather eccentric orbit, whichóra is located at a distance of about three astronomical units from its parent star. One astronomical unit – AU (astronomical unit) is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun – about 150 millionóin a kilometerów.

In TESS data, researchers have spotted another planet orbiting wokó³ of this star. It is a rocky planet with a diameter more than twice the size of Earth and a mass nearly five times that of our planet. This super-Earth, named pi Mensae c, orbits at a distance of just 0.07 AU from its star, which means it circles its sun in just over six days. That’s more than 50 times closer than Mercury’s orbit in our solar system.

TESS is the successor to the Kepler Space Telescope, któru has already run out of fuel and cannot continue its mission. More than 2,600 exoplanets have been discovered thanks to the Kepler telescope. Researchers hope TESS will improve this result.