Posted on 05/18/2018 8:01:22 PM PDT by Simon Green
One month after its launch, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows more than 200,000 stars in the southern sky.
TESS’ image was taken by one of its cameras with a two-second exposure. The picture is centered on the constellation Centaurus, with the edge of the dark Coalsack Nebula at upper right and the star Beta Centauri prominent along the lower edge.
The picture provides only a hint of what TESS will be seeing once it starts delivering science-quality images next month. When all four wide-field cameras are in operation, TESS’ images should cover more than 400 times as much of the sky.
The refrigerator-sized spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 18. On Thursday, the probe completed a lunar flyby that brought it closer to its intended orbit for scientific observations..One more thruster burn is scheduled on May 30 to complete the orbital maneuvers.
TESS is designed to monitor 85 percent of the night sky from a highly eccentric Earth orbit, ranging from 63,000 to 200,000 miles in altitude. It’ll zero in on 200,000 of the brightest stars in our celestial neighborhood, looking for telltale changes in brightness that result when a planet crosses over the star’s disk.
Astronomers expect to identify more than 1,500 of such transiting exoplanets during TESS’ two-year primary mission. About 500 of those are expected to be Earth-sized or slightly bigger than Earth.
TESS’ findings will serve as a catalog for follow-up observations using more powerful instruments — such as NASA’s James Webb Telescope, which is currently slated for launch in 2020.
2 second exposure...Awesome..I’d like to see the raw image. Can’t wait for JWT to launch. If it’s successful some of the discoveries should be mind bending.
'When you see the Southern Cross for the first time...'
The first time I saw the Southern Cross was a few years ago, when my father and I went on a photo safari in South Africa.
Okay, which little dot is going to turn into the Enterprise?
One more thruster burn is scheduled on May 30 to complete the orbital maneuvers. Space dynamics and math fascinate me.
*ping*
Probably the white dot.
Do you ever find yourself being blasé about God’s glory?
How can someone look upon this image and not believe in our God Most High?
“There are stars in the southern sky...”
The 3069th little dot from the left and then go 4699 dots south. That’s the USS Enterprise- or at least it was the enterprise just before the Borg blew it up.
I’m Jewish. Where can I find the “Jewish star” or “Mogan David”? The constellation “Pisces” since fish played a major role in Jewish events? Or in Cetus, the whale (remember Jonah)?
Beautiful photo!
Beautiful photo
How beautiful!
The 3069th little dot from the left and then go 4699 dots south. That’s the USS Enterprise- or at least it was the enterprise just before the Borg blew it up.
—
The dot in the far upper left (at 60 light years distant) is the Culture Rapid Offensive Unit (ROU) “Miss Me Yet?” (Abominator Class) shortly before it destroyed the entire Borg fleet as an afterthought ... and just before it reached out (effected), squeezing the Borg ship you mentioned into a two meter crumpled square, followed by dusting the remains of with contained anti-matter (CAM).
Moral: Don’t mess with the Culture.
Ha. Thanks, but The culture is far beyond any help I could possibly offer it
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