Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 20 april 2018

NASA's Tess spacecraft embarks on quest to find new planets

stars, thought to be rich
breeding grounds for plan-
ets.
To find the planets, Tess will
use the same transit meth-
od employed by Kepler,
watching for regular, fleet-
ing dips in stellar brightness
that would indicate a plan-
et passing in front of its star.
That's the best astronomers
can do for now.
By sticking to stars closer
to home, it will be easier
for Webb and other mas-
sive telescopes planned for
space and Earth to sniff out
possible signs of life in the
atmosphere. It also will be
more feasible for robotic
explorers to set sail for these
new worlds in the decades
and centuries ahead.
For such a large undertak-
ing, Tess is surprisingly com-
pact and its mission rela-
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket transporting the Tess satellite lifts off from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in tively inexpensive at $337
Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, April 18, 2018. million.
Associated Press Smaller than a stacked
washer-dryer, the 5-foot-
By MARCIA DUNN gas giants and, possibly, cold nor too hot, but just more than doubling Ke- tall, 4-foot-wide, 800-pound
AP Aerospace Writer water worlds. Super-Earths right for life-nourishing wa- pler's confirmed planetary spacecraft (1.5-meters
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. between the sizes of Earth ter. count of more than 2,600, by 1.2-meters and 362 ki-
(AP) — NASA's Tess space- and Neptune. Maybe even The most promising can- once Tess' four wide-view lograms) is bound for an
craft embarked Wednes- an Earth twin. didates will be studied by cameras begin scientific elongated orbit of Earth,
day on a quest to find new "The sky will become more bigger, more powerful ob- observations in early sum- with the far end skirting the
worlds around neighboring beautiful, will become servatories of the future, mer. Unlike Tess, Kepler orbit of the moon.
stars that could support life. more awesome" knowing including NASA's James could only scour a sliver of Tess should come within a
Tess rode a SpaceX Falcon there are planets orbiting Webb Space Telescope, the sky. few thousand miles of the
rocket through the eve- the stars we see twinkling at due to launch in another The total exoplanet census lunar surface on May 17.
ning sky, aiming for an orbit night, said NASA's top sci- few years as the heir to currently stands at more The moon's gravity will help
stretching all the way to the ence administrator, Thom- Hubble. These telescopes than 3,700 confirmed, with get the satellite in the right
moon. as Zurbuchen. will scour the planets' at- another 4,500 on the not- orbit and keep it there. The
The satellite — the Transiting Discoveries by Tess and oth- mospheres for any of the yet-verified list. That's a lot cameras — equipped with
Exoplanet Survey Satellite, er missions, he noted, will ingredients of life: water considering the first one wide-angle lenses a mere 4
or Tess — will scan almost bring us closer to answer- vapor, oxygen, methane, popped up barely two de- inches across (10 centime-
the entire sky for at least ing questions that have carbon dioxide. cades ago. ters) — will be off during the
two years, staring at the lingered for thousands of "Tess will tell us where to Until about 25 years ago, lunar flyby.
closest, brightest stars in an years. look at and when to look," the only known planets "No moon selfie," said Rob-
effort to find and identify Does life exist beyond said the mission's chief sci- were in our own solar sys- ert Lockwood of Orbital
any planets around them. Earth? If so, is it microbial or entist, George Ricker of tem, noted NASA's director ATK, which built Tess.
Hundreds of thousands more advanced? Massachusetts Institute of of astrophysics, Paul Hertz. Tess team members reveled
of stars will be scrutinized, But Tess won't look for life. Technology. While Kepler has focused in Wednesday's smooth,
with the expectation that It's not designed for that. Tess is the successor to on stars thousands of light- photogenic flight through
thousands of exoplanets Rather, it will scout for plan- NASA's Kepler Space Tele- years away, Tess will con- clear skies, and NASA of-
— planets outside our own ets of all sorts, but especially scope, on its last legs after centrate on our stellar ficials were delighted to
solar system — will be re- those in the so-called Gold- discovering a few thou- neighbors, dozens or hun- clear the way for a May 5
vealed right in our cosmic ilocks or habitable zone of sand exoplanets over the dreds of light-years away. launch of the Mars lander,
backyard. a star: an orbit where tem- past nine years. Most of Tess' targets will be InSight, from California.
Rocky and icy planets, hot peratures are neither too Astronomers anticipate cool, common red dwarf SpaceX employees had
another reason to cele-
brate: The first-stage boost-
er rocket landed on an
ocean platform following
liftoff, to be recycled for a
future NASA mission.
"It was incredible, it was
so emotional," said MIT re-
searcher Natalia Guerrero.
"I can't wait to get started
on collecting data."
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