NASA, Space X set to launch satellite TESS to hunt exoplanets

NASA and Space X are set to launch a new satellite on Monday with a goal to find other planets that can support life.

The spacecraft popularly called TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is given a huge task of finding “thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky,” as per NASA’s website.

“To me, TESS represents the very first opportunity to really, truly make progress in this area of trying to find signs of life on other worlds,” MIT astrophysics professor Sara Seager told in an interview.

Launching Monday, our planet-hunting @NASA_TESS spacecraft will fly in a unique orbit that'll allow it to study nearly the entire sky over 2 years. This special orbit is key in potentially finding thousands of new planets outside our solar system. Watch: pic.twitter.com/2ONGXewAji

— NASA (@NASA) April 16, 2018

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“It really has a chance to find a rocky planet, that’s the right distance from its star, the right temperature to have life on its surface. Tess will find a pool of planets like that,” added Seager.

The main mission handed to TESS is to monitor over 20, 00,000 stars in the space and find other existing planets. The spacecraft will scan our neighbourhood starts that shows “temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits,” NASA’s website explains.

The new planet hunting satellite will be launched by Elon Musk’s company Space X on Monday at Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida.