NASA Satellite To Seek Earth-like Planets
Thousands of new planets outside our Solar System could be discovered by NASA's TESS satellite, which will be launched in December 2017, according to plan. Over a period of two years, TESS’ cameras will search at least 200,000 stars and focus on any brief light intensity reductions. Such change indicates that a planet orbiting the star is temporarily blocking out its light. NASA hopes to discover about 500 Earth-like planets, for study in more detail by Earth-based telescopes and the future James Webb space telescope.