Nasa’s Tess on a quest to find new habitable planets

NASA’s Tess spacecraft has embarked on a quest to find new worlds around neighbouring stars that could support life.

On Wednesday Tess rode a SpaceX Falcon rocket through the evening sky, aiming for an orbit stretching to the moon.

The satellite – the Transiting Exoplanet

Survey Satellite, or Tess – will scan almost the entire sky for at least two years, staring at the closest, brightest stars to find and identify any planets around them.

Hundreds of thousands of stars will be scrutinised, with thousands of rocky and icy planets, hot gas giants and possibly water worlds.

Super-Earths between the sizes of Earth and Neptune will be sought, maybe even an Earth twin.

“The sky will become more beautiful, more awesome” knowing there are planets orbiting the stars we see twinkling at night, said Nasa science administratorThomas Zurbuchen.

Discoveries by Tess and other missions would bring us closer to answering questions that have lingered for thousands of years.

Does life exist beyond Earth? If so, is it microbial or more advanced?

But Tess won’t look for life. It’s not designed for that. Rather, it will scout for planets of all sorts, but especially those in the so-called Goldilocks or habitable zone of a star. – African News Agency (ANA)