TESS launch approaches!

[A51Watcher]

The TESS satellite's tentative launch in March 2018 appears to be on track!

This mission is going to be EPIC!!!


While it's predecessor KEPLER astounded humanity with it's imaging of solar systems beyond our own, to date in the thousands (before one of it's gyroscopes broke), it had only been imaging one small patch of sky that contains about 4.5 million stars.





By comparison TESS will be imaging the entire sky!! -




AND perhaps most important of all, it will also be able (for the first time ever) to look at the chemical signatures of the light passing through exoplanet atmospheres!

I expect we will see more of the same, as seen from Keplar, but the chemical results of the atmospheres should be amazing!

[robomont]

two thumbs up.that chem sig thing is neat.im curious of its accuracy with redshift.