On its direction to look for human beings beyond the Solar System , NASA ’s unexampled spacecraft devoted to looking for planets has taken a rather incredible test look-alike .
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS),launchedon April 18 , fly past the Moon on Thursday , May 17 at a distance of about 8,000 kilometers ( 5,000 stat mi ) . And in the process , it tested out one of its four cameras .
This produce the simulacrum you see below , which contains a whopping 200,000 mavin . This was a 2 - second photo , which serve as a pretty undecomposed reminder of how many stars are in the night sky .
In the image you could see the edge of the Coalsack Nebula in the correct upper corner , which is located 600 light - years from Earth . Towards the bottom of the image that bright star you may see is a three-fold - star system called Beta Centauri , 390 light - years from Earth .
" As part of television camera commission , the scientific discipline team snapped a two - 2d test exposure using one of the four TESS tv camera , " saidNASA . " The image , centered on the southern configuration Centaurus , bring out more than 200,000 star . "
TESS was fly past the Moon to get a gravity boost on its way to its finalunusual orbit , which will give it a view of the entire sky . In sum , TESS is expect to consider an area that ’s about 400 time big than the image above .
In other June , the space vehicle will take a science - caliber test range of a function of the night sky , with science operations wait to commence about mid - June . It ’s hoped that TESS will find about 20,000 planet beyond the Solar System , or exoplanets , focusing on wizard 30 to 300 light - years from Earth .
It will find planets by monitoring the dip in a principal ’s light as a planet passes in front , known as the transit method acting . Most of the planets it finds will be expectant , either gas giants or super - Earths , but a few hundred will be less than twice the size of Earth and possibly rocky .
TESS will build upon the body of work of NASA ’s subsist planet - hunter , Kepler , to further our reason of exoplanets like never before . And if this image is anything to go by , we ’re in for quite a godforsaken drive .
