TESS Mission
Surveying the sky for new worlds
About the TESS Mission
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was launched in 2018 to search for planets around the brightest and nearest stars. Unlike Kepler, which stared at a single patch of sky, TESS surveys nearly the entire sky using four wide-field cameras. Each sector is observed for about 27 days, enabling the detection of short-period planets.
TESS’s discoveries are ideal for follow-up with ground-based telescopes and the James Webb Space Telescope. The mission is ongoing and continues to deliver new planet candidates and discoveries.
About the TESS Dataset
The TESS dataset provides detailed information for thousands of planet candidates, including properties of the planet, host star, and detection. Example features include:
- toi: TESS Object of Interest number
- tid: TESS Input Catalog ID
- tfopwg_disp: Disposition (e.g., Candidate, Confirmed)
- pl_orbper: Orbital period (days)
- pl_rade: Planet radius (Earth radii)
- pl_trandep: Transit depth (ppm)
- st_teff: Stellar effective temperature (K)
- ...
See the full TESS feature list for more details.
Scientific Impact
TESS has identified thousands of planet candidates, including Earth-size and potentially habitable worlds. Notable discoveries include TOI 700 d (an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone), LTT 1445 Ab, and TOI 1338 b (a circumbinary planet). TESS’s all-sky survey is helping to build the next generation of exoplanet science.