NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), shown here in a conceptual illustration, will identify exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), shown here in a conceptual illustration, will identify exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system.
TESS will search for exoplanets orbiting stars within hundreds of light-years of our solar system. Looking at these close, bright stars will allow large ground-based telescopes and the James Webb Space Telescope to do follow-up observations on the exoplanets TESS finds to characterize their atmospheres.
Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center