TESS Stories

Artist concept of TESS spacecraft.

NASA’s TESS Returns to Science Operations

4 min read

NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) returned to science operations May 3 and is once again making observations. The satellite went into safe mode April 23 following a separate period of down time earlier that month. The operations team determined…

Article5 hours ago

How NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Measure Ages of Stars

5 min read

Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its…

Article1 month ago
Artist's concept shows the red-dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1, at the upper left, with two large dots on the face of the disk representing transiting planets; five more planets are shown at varying positions descending toward the lower right as they orbit the star. Artist's concept shows the TRAPPIST-1 planets as they might be seen from Earth using an extremely powerful – and fictional – telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

That Starry Night Sky? It’s Full of Eclipses

5 min read

Our star, the Sun, on occasion joins forces with the Moon to offer us Earthlings a spectacular solar eclipse – like the one that will be visible to parts of the United States, Mexico, and Canada on April 8. But…

Article1 month ago