Science AMA Series: We’re NASA, MIT and Kepler scientists excited about the launch of our newest planet hunter, TESS. AMA!

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We’re finding planets around other stars! So far we have discovered thousands of these exoplanets with missions like Kepler and K2. Today we’re at Kennedy Space Center eagerly awaiting the launch of NASA’s newest planet hunter. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS mission, will search nearly the entire sky looking for tiny dips in the light from Earth’s closest neighborhood stars that may indicate planets passing in front of the stars.

TESS will make a catalog of thousands of worlds for us to study in more detail with future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.

TESS will fly in an orbit that completes two circuits around the Earth for every orbit of the Moon. This special orbit will allow TESS’s cameras to monitor each patch of sky for nearly a month at a time.

We are:

Natalia Guerrero:

Elisa V. Quintana: I’m an astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center where I work on the TESS and WFIRST missions. I study exoplanets in extreme environments and am looking forward to finding new ones with TESS.

Stephen Rinehart:

Diana Dragomir:

Sam Quinn:

Geert Berentsen:

Christina Hedges: Christina works with the Kepler/K2 mission developing software to help professional astronomers, amateurs and the public hunt for exoplanets in Kepler's public data. She works primarily on exoplanets and young stars and uses the Hubble Space Telescope to learn more about the atmospheres of distant worlds.

Learn more about TESS at www.nasa.gov/tess

Follow us on @NASA_TESS to stay updated

">Science AMA Series: We’re NASA, MIT and Kepler scientists excited about the launch of our newest planet hunter, TESS. AMA!