Author: Matt Davis / Source: Big Think
- The Kepler program closed down in August, 2018, after nine and a half years of observing the universe.
- Picking up where it left off, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already found eight planets, three of which scientists are very excited about, and six supernovae.
- In many ways, TESS is already outperforming Kepler, and researchers expect it to find more than 20,000 exoplanets over its lifespan.
In 2009, we only knew of the existence of 350 exoplanets, or planets outside of our solar system. Then, NASA launched the Kepler space telescope, and all of that changed. Over its 9-and-a-half-year lifespan, the telescope identified 2,720 exoplanets. We learned that every star is orbited by at least one planet on average, we learned more about the evolution and fates of planets as they orbit their star, and we even found a number of planets that might support life.
But nothing lasts forever. On October 30th, 2018, NASA announced that the productive spacecraft had run out of the fuel it needed to continue its scientific mission. That doesn’t mean that the hunt for other worlds is over, however.
In partnership with SpaceX, NASA launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on April 18th, 2018, to pick up where Kepler left off. And it’s off with a bang. In only its first four months of observing the stars, TESS…
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