Happy Birthday to TESS, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Launched on April 18, 2018, TESS has since been hunting for exoplanets in our galaxy.
Recently, on April 8, TESS had gone to sleep in "safe mode" due to an anomaly detected by its computer system. At the time of the anomaly, some scheduled engineering activities were taking place 🤔
All is well now, as TESS continues to add to its record of 432 confirmed exoplanets and 7,138 candidates.
As its name implies, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) detects exoplanets by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars caused by planets crossing in front of them.
TESS measurements reveal the planet’s size and orbital parameters. Discovered exoplanets are further studied by telescopes like the JWST.
The graph below shows a sample light curve. Images like the one below are artist's impressions; a very large telescope could reveal such details.
TESS has also discovered stellar systems with multiple eclipsing stars.
Here is a graphic of the 6-star system named YC 7037-89-1, where all of the stars participate in eclipses. The system is located about 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
The primary stars in all 3 binaries are all slightly bigger and more massive than the Sun and about as hot. The secondaries are all around half the Sun’s size and a third as hot. No exoplanets detected yet.
What kind of telescope can possibly image the surface of exoplanets, given their small size and large distance?
Our best telescopes on land and in space won't cut it. Scientists have studied the Solar Gravilty Lens (SGL) based telescope, where the Sun's gravity bends light and acts as a gigantic lens. The focal point of the lens is 550 AU away and will require a swarm of telescopes lined up along that line. Not feasible today, but some day ..
Here is a video with an animation of the TYC 7037-89-1 eclipsing sextuple stellar system. See post #3 in this thread for more info on TYC 7037-89-1 and its discovery by TESS, the planet hunting space telescope.
Oops. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) entered "safe mode" again on Tuesday, April 23, due to an anomaly detected by its computer system. At the time of the anomaly, some "routine activity" was taking place. No explanation yet about what caused the anomaly 2 weeks ago.
@AkaSci How would you even communicate at something that's 550> AU away? Do we even have radio transmitters on Earth powerful enough? You'd almost need a radio transmitter emitting in the Megawatt or Gigawatt range, which has practical limitations.
That is unless you establish a radio relay network.
Then there's the practical concerns about hardening a device for deep space that could operate for potentially a century.
@AkaSci Love imagining and reading about different concepts to try and accomplish this.
I think the most feasible is probably mass producing a swarm of spacecraft being launched at regular intervals, somewhat similar to the breakthrough starshot concept.
Having multiple spacecraft in series forming a meshnet as they travel to the focal point they can relay the data back that way.
Decelerating spacecraft that far out and reaching destinations within reasonable time is even more daunting.
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