Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

MKI led the construction of and now operates NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.

TESS searches the entire sky for exoplanets with orbits precisely aligned with our line of sight so that they “transit,” or pass in front of their stars, and block a small fraction of the star’s light. TESS measures the brightness of stars with extreme precision (thanks to its exquisite stability, sensitive detector technology, and space-based location) and is able to measure the shallow dimming events caused by planets the size of Earth and smaller. Currently, TESS is conducting routine observations of the sky, downlinking data from orbit each week, and MKI scientists.

So far, TESS has discovered thousands of exoplanet candidates, most of which are believed to be genuine exoplanets. Once the planet discoveries are released to the community, scientists at MKI and around the world observe them with other telescopes to confirm their existence, measure their detailed parameters, and learn more about planets outside the solar system. Beyond exoplanet science, TESS’s precise photometric measurements are making fundamental contributions to the study of asteroids, comets, and Trans-Neptunian objects in our own solar system, stellar structure/evolution/magnetism, transients like supernovae or gamma ray bursts, and the variability of active galactic nuclei.