TESS

Since the first exoplanet was detected in 1992, have been discovered 6,273 planets outside the solar system. However, detection methods have become so refined that that number is expected to skyrocket in the coming years. Just look at the list just presented by a team of scientists from Princeton University, which includes more than 10,000 new candidates. Many may not be exoplanets when they are reviewed, but the fact that so many candidates have been found is already a good sign. A very well spent first year. This new list It comes from the analysis of the first year of data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Exploration Satellite (TESS). In total 11,554 possible exoplanets have been found. However, 411 of them were only captured in one transit, so their orbital parameters could not be calculated. Another 1,052 had already been confirmed as exoplanets in the past. The remaining 10,091 do make up a list of possible exoplanets that had not been noted before. Transi what? Transit is one of the most useful methods of exoplanet detection. Typically, it is much easier to detect the star around which a planet orbits than the planet itself. After all, stars are bigger and brighter. However, observing the star itself can give us data on the existence of planets orbiting it. And when these pass between the star and the telescopes that observe it, their light is interrupted. Like when a cloud passes in front of the Sun or a very large moth flies in front of a light bulb. We know that planets revolve around their stars with a fixed period. For example, it takes the Earth 364 days to orbit the Sun. When these light interruptions are seen cyclically, it can be assumed that there is a planet orbiting the star. That’s what TESS detects. The advances of TESS. Until now, exoplanets have been searched around very bright stars. However, TESS has the ability to also study stars with weaker illumination. This allows us to do a much more complete analysis of the sky and find many more candidates for exoplanets. In fact, a lot of data is generated at once, so it has also been necessary to use a machine learning algorithm to analyze it all and find the real candidates. It must be confirmed. There are other reasons why a star’s light could be interrupted. For example, eclipsing binary stars either solar activity itself. That is why the next step, once a list of possible exoplanets is found, is to analyze them carefully to rule out those other possibilities and check which ones really are. It can still improve. These scientists are now ready to also begin analyzing data from the second year of TESS observation. In this case, some changes have been made in the study methodology, such as studying stars that are observed at different times of the year. This way, exoplanets with a long period can also be detected, which sometimes go unnoticed if they are not observed at the right time. When the period is very small, they pass many times between the star and the telescopes, so it is easier detect traffic. If the period is long, it is difficult to detect them if you do not look at the right time. With this in mind, the study’s authors hope to double the list of candidates. If this time there have been more than 10,000, the next time we have news about TESS there could be many more. Image | POT In Xataka | How the solar system was formed: for the Earth to be born, a star had to die first