NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) handily beat its goals. The space agency has revealed that its spacecraft has spotted over 2,200 potential planets since beginning its mission in 2018. Hundreds of those are smaller planets, some of which could include rocky worlds that are more Earth-like (though not necessarily habitable).
TESS was originally expected to find 1,600 planets in its first two years.
Some of the discoveries are decidedly unusual. The rocky planet TOI-700 d is just 100 light-years away. LHS 3844 b is a “hot super-Earth” with an extremely close 11-hour orbit. TOI 1690 b is the rare survivor of a red giant star engulfing planets in its orbit, while TOI 849 b appears to be a gas giant that either lost its atmosphere or never had one.
The first step, of course, will be confirming the existence of many in the catalog that remain candidate planets; about 120 have been confirmed to date with dozens more on the way. Confirmation often requires ground-based observations using gravitational measurements, high-resolution imaging, and stellar characterization.
