NASA's TESS passes 1,000 confirmed planets as 70 new worlds join the archive in one week
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has now found more than 1,000 confirmed planets, a milestone reached as 70 new planets were added to the NASA Exoplanet Archive in a single weekly update.
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has now helped discover more than 1,000 confirmed planets beyond our solar system, the NASA Exoplanet Archive announced on 8 October. The milestone came with a weekly update that added 70 new planets to the archive.
6,445 confirmed planets and counting
The new additions bring the archive's total of confirmed exoplanets, from all telescopes and methods, to 6,445. The archive is run for NASA by Caltech's IPAC science centre.
TESS launched in April 2018 to scan the sky for planets passing in front of bright, nearby stars. When a planet crosses its star, it blocks a little light, and TESS records that dip. Its finds give newer telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope close, bright targets to study in detail.
Thousands more candidates are waiting
The count will keep rising. There are 4,823 TESS candidates waiting to be confirmed, and data on more than 8,000 candidates have been shared with astronomers for follow-up observations. A candidate only becomes a confirmed planet once other observations rule out look-alikes such as eclipsing double stars.
The archive called the milestone "a proud moment for the TESS mission and the exoplanet science community". The search for planets is also moving towards seeing them directly, with tools such as the coronagraph on NASA's Roman telescope, designed to block starlight.
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