In just six weeks of science observations, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already found 50 possible new worlds for scientists to examine.
TESS finds planets by watching the dip in light as a planet passes in front of its parent star. It began science observations on July 25 and the first set of information was available to astronomers on September 5, but the first step in examining TESS’ data is to eliminate false positives. Sometimes a possible “planet” will actually be a binary star blocking its companion’s light, or it could be sunspots on the star’s surface, no second body needed.
While most of these planetary candidates will be discarded upon future analysis, principal investigator George Ricker at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Astronomy there are likely six new bona-fide planets lurking in this data alone. Ricker says that usually five to 20 percent of planetary candidates ...
