Josh Winn Lecar Lecture: The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Lecar Lecture: The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. However, the invitation can only be accepted if the planet's host star is bright enough for precise follow-up observations. Finding the brightest and most observationally favorable systems is the ongoing mission of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Conceived in 2006 here in Cambridge as a partnership between MIT and the Center for Astrophysics, TESS was ultimately launched in 2018 as a NASA Explorer Mission. TESS uses four 10-cm telescopes to repeatedly image a 24 x 96 degree field of view, which is switched every 27 days to progressively cover the entire sky. So far, TESS data have resulted in 7000 planet candidates. Hundreds of planetary mass measurements have helped to distinguish between rocky "super-Earths" and lower-density "mini-Neptunes", while observations with the James Webb Space Telescope are starting to reveal the secrets of their atmospheres. More broadly, TESS probes the optical variability of a wide range of astronomical objects, including stars, asteroids, comets, supernovae, and active galactic nuclei. This presentation will review the history of TESS, some of the most interesting findings, and the ways you might use the data yourself.