Planet- hunting probe of Nasa delayed

Washington: The launch of a new Nasa satellite, which will hunt for exoplanets that have the potential to harbour alien life, has been delayed to April 18. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS), was supposed to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in the early hours today. “Launch teams are standing down today to conduct additional Guidance Navigation and Control analysis. The Nasa spacecraft is in excellent health and remains ready for launch on the new targeted date of Wednesday, April 18,” Nasa wrote in a tweet. “We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator. With the help of a gravitational assist from the Moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7- day orbit around Earth. Sixty days after launch, and following tests of its instruments, the satellite will begin its initial twoyear mission. The satellite, developed by scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT) in the US, aims to discover thousands of nearby exoplanets. The spacecraft, not much larger than a refrigerator, carries four cameras that will survey the nearest, brightest stars in the sky. TESS will spend two years scanning nearly the entire sky — a field of view that can encompass more than 20 million stars. The first year of observations will map the 13 sectors encompassing the southern sky, and the second year will map the 13 sectors of the northern sky.