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TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)

Active Mission

NASA’s TESS discovers exoplanets, worlds beyond our solar system. In the course of its extended observations of the sky, TESS also finds and monitors all types of objects that change in brightness, from nearby asteroids to pulsating stars and distant galaxies containing supernovae.

Type

Space telescope

Launch

April 18, 2018

Wavelength

Visible light

Status

Extended mission

TESS's Dazzling Night Sky

The TESS mission has released its most complete view of the starry sky to date. Nearly 6,000 colored dots scattered across the image show the locations of either confirmed or candidate exoplanets — worlds beyond our solar system — identified by the mission as of September 2025 at the end of TESS’s second extended mission.

Oval projection of the TESS night sky with exoplanet markers

Latest NASA TESS News

Explore All NASA TESS News

NASA’s Planet-Hunting TESS Reveals Dazzling Night Sky

For NASA’s TESS, Stellar Eclipses Shed Light on Possible New Worlds

NASA’s TESS Reobserves Comet 3I/ATLAS

TESS Status Updates

NASA AI Model That Found 370 Exoplanets Now Digs Into TESS Data

Featured Video

Primary Mission Complete, TESS Extends its Exploration

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) completed its two-year primary mission and continues its search for new worlds. Learn about some of TESS’s most interesting discoveries so far.

Other TESS News

A newly discovered exoplanet, Kepler-452b, comes the closest of any found so far to matching our Earth-sun system.

McMaster Univ.: New Findings Challenge Planet Formation Theories

Artist's concept of an exoplanet system

Univ. Warwick: AI Approach Uncovers Dozens of Hidden Planets in NASA’s TESS Data

An object disintegrates as it orbits a star.

MIT: Astronomers Discover Planet That’s Rapidly Disintegrating

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