I'm Paul Hertz today we'll be touching
pests NASA's next planet hunter tests
will discover thousands of planets
around other stars and help NASA in his
search for life beyond Earth I'm Sara
Seager tests we'll find planets of all
sizes bigger tests we'll find planets of
all sizes bigger than Earth around
nearby bright stars building on Kepler
discoveries I'm George Ricker using the
four ultra-sensitive wide field cameras
on tests the mission will look at
millions of stars for small drops
temporarily in brightnesses as their as
their are passing exoplanets
I'm Jeff Allison and Tess is currently
down at the Kennedy Space Center where
we're doing the final preparations and
check-out before we get ready to launch
on a falcon 9 rocket on April 16th after
the relaunch we'll spend the first two
months doing a checkout on orbit make
sure this satellite works properly and
then we'll begin an exciting two-year
exoplanet hunting mission hi hi I'm
Felicia Chow and welcome to NASA
headquarters join in on the conversation
by following us on all our social media
accounts you can also ask questions
during this briefing by using the
hashtag ask NASA and you can learn more
about tests on our website at nasa.gov
slash tests before we start the
conversation let's learn more about this
wonderful mission in the last few
decades we have found thousands of
worlds around other stars a new NASA
astrophysics mission will help us find
many more tests transiting exoplanet
survey satellite
excellent efficient it's being led out
of MIT and it's going to find thousands
of new planets orbiting bright nearby
stars and it's going to build upon the
legacy of the Kepler mission only it's
going to focus on nearby bright stars
that are sprinkled across the whole sky
and it's going to help us answer a
really important question and that is
which of our near stellar neighbors has
planets during its two-year survey Tess
will look for signs of planets ranging
from earth size to Giants larger than
Jupiter
Tess will search for these new worlds or
exoplanets using transits the same
method as the Kepler mission as a planet
passes in front of its star it blocks
some of the light causing a slight drop
in brightness tasks can detect those
subtle dips and even use them to
determine some basic features of the
planets such as their size and orbit
each of Tess's cameras has a 16 point 8
megapixel sensor covering a 24 degree
square large enough to contain an entire
constellation Tess has four of these
cameras arranged to view a vertical
strip of the sky called an observation
sector the coverage of the test cameras
is unprecedented in terms of the amount
of sky that they can actually see at any
given time and also of their ability to
cover such a broad portion of the sky
the types of targets that tests will
allow us to find will enclose
essentially all of the bright nearby
stars TAS will watch each observation
sector for about 27 days before rotating
to the next one covering first the south
and then the north to eventually build a
map of 85% of the sky
this coverage about 350 times what
Kepler first observed will make test the
first exoplanet mission to survey almost
the entire sky Tess will fly in a highly
elliptical orbit that maximizes the
amount of sky the spacecraft can image
and is carefully timed with the orbit of
the moon it will spend most of each 13.7
day orbit collecting data and then as it
passes closer to Earth it will transmit
that data to the ground because Tess's
observation sectors overlap it will have
an area near the pole under constant
observation this region is easily
monitored by the James Webb Space
Telescope which allows the two missions
to work together to first find and then
carefully study exoplanets since most of
the exoplanets found by Tess will orbit
bright stars missions like Webb will be
able to measure the spectra of Starlight
absorbed by the planets atmospheres
which can indicate what they're made of
ground-based measurements of the test
exoplanets can determine their masses
combining the masses with Tess's size
measurements reveals densities allowing
scientists to better understand the
exoplanets compositions the thing that
we're really excited about with tests is
the way that it'll actually build on the
momentum that we started with Kepler so
Tess is gonna take that same search
approach but apply it to the vast
majority of the sky which still hasn't
really been looked at in detail when
searching for exoplanets and by focusing
especially on planets that orbit bright
nearby stars Tess allows us to start
looking at things like planet
composition atmospheric makeup and that
will then be crucial when we want to
start looking around stars are even
further away and in deeper parts of the
galaxy as well Tess is the vanguard of a
new era of exoplanet study and will
forever expand our understanding of
worlds beyond our own
so Paul can you tell us more about how
Tess is gonna help NASA's and NASA's
search for life in habitable worlds sure
Tess is gonna look for planets around
other stars by watching the slight dip
in brightness of the star as the planet
passes in front of it
and this will tell us which planets we
need which stars means to look at to
study those planets in more detail so
we'll be able to turn other telescopes
towards those stars like NASA's upcoming
James Webb Space Telescope and with
those larger telescopes we'll be able to
look for telltale signs in the
atmospheres of those planets that might
tell us what the planets are made of and
perhaps even whether they have the kinds
of gases in their atmospheres that on
earth are an indication of life Tess
itself will not be able to find life
beyond Earth but tests will help us
figure out where to point our larger
telescopes in that search Sarah
so before besides the field of view
what's the major difference between
Kepler and tests and the planets that
they find
well felici how the major difference is
that Kepler pioneering Kepler was a
census mission essentially discovering
and counting planets of all sizes and
orbits planets and stars that are quite
far away test is the natural next step
by searching for planets around very
nearby bright stars so that we can do
the follow-up measurements partly that
paul was talking about and by doing
those measurements we hope to actually
identify all the worlds we've been
dreaming about such as hot super Earths
that may have liquid lava lakes or water
worlds that may be 50% or more by mass
water like scaled up versions of
Jupiter's icy moons or even rocky worlds
of all different kinds and even maybe
ones that have atmospheres thin
atmosphere is reminiscent of Earth's I
should emphasize though that Tess is
sweet spot is for planets transiting
small stars small red dwarf stars called
M dwarf stars that are half the size of
our Sun or smaller Geoff can you tell us
about some of the more exciting
components
about the test spacecraft yeah sure
Felicia happened to bring tests with me
or at least a small effects simile so
it's not really this small it's about
700 pounds it carries about a hundred
pounds of fuel on board and you could
see there's a graphic that shows you how
big it is with some people around it
it's a little shorter than I am so the
most important thing about test see
you've been hearing about already is the
fact that has these four really cool
currents they were built up at MIT and
they're the ones that really this is the
Camerons that do the science this is
where we find the exoplanets so the
cameras in the center to give you an
idea about how big they are
this is one of the lenses that didn't
pass inspection that would have gotten
in one of our cameras and so this gives
you an idea there are seven lenses in
each inside each camera to bring all the
Starlight into focus so that we can
collect the photons to learn about the
exoplanets so beyond that there's a
shade around the outside of the cameras
keeps the Sun and the earth light and
the heat of the Sun from getting in
where the cameras are so we can get a
nice clean view of the sky without any
interference from other light sources
then if you look around it's got solar
panels like almost every other
spacecraft and what another feature that
points that stands out is this large
antenna so we spend about two and a half
weeks staring out at the stars
collecting data about transiting
exoplanets we've got to get all that
data to the ground so we swing by the
earth in this large antenna allows us to
download link all of that data very
quickly down to the Deep Space Network
at NASA to collect our images so we can
then go around and collect more science
data the only other thing to point out
is down on the bottom we've got a
propulsion system again we carry about a
hundred pounds of fuel this helps us get
to our final orbit which then we can
remain in a stable orbit for decades
once we achieve it thanks Jeff so George
can you tell us about what inspired the
test mission yes
beginning in the 1990s our research
group at MIT began developing sensitive
x-ray cameras for a variety of missions
we were fortunate enough to fly on to
Japanese astronomy missions the Chandra
a great observatory from NASA and a
small Explorer also from NASA called a
high-energy transient Explorer and one
of the things that characterized all of
these missions was that they were using
see CDs at that time that we're large
and so our project was to make the
transition from those see CDs at the
size that we had there which actually
weren't much larger than the than the
CCD that you have in the back of your
iPhone and we went from that to see CDs
that have sizes that are more like these
and as you can see this is a wafer that
was actually used to fabricate the
actual C CDs of that test is flying not
this particular wafer of course it's got
my fingerprints on it but it does it the
size is identical and one of the things
that you can see is because of the the
lithography patterns that are in it
makes a really nice series of colorful
diffraction patterns the eight
rectangles that you can see in this
wafer are the exact size the CCD so
they're more than a hundred times larger
than the ones that you have in your
iPhone and a single wafer this size
could actually in principle provide the
C CDs that are needed for two of the
test cameras we've got a total of
sixteen we we had pretty good yield but
not quite enough that we could do it all
into two wafers thanks George so Sarah
we know that Tess is gonna measure dips
of light as planets go by a star but how
do we know that the dip of light is
actually caused by a planet versus say
maybe a small star or some other objects
well the test science team will be
working very hard to discriminate
amongst light curves that are not from
planets versus ones that are from
planets and believe it or not in the
field of exoplanets now we have this
down to a science
because of Kepler and many other transit
finding surveys mostly from the ground
have really sorted this out so we
monitor stars long enough to try to see
at least two dips and brightness so we
can put it on a single planet and we
actually have been training team
ourselves a small team of people so far
on simulated data that includes like
binary stars and instrument artifacts
and other things that would not be
planet candidates and we use humans and
computers to look at the light curves
other data products to practice finding
the very best planet candidates for
further study and that's what we'll be
doing as soon as we get the real data
that's very exciting so in the video it
was shown that Tess's orbit actually
coincides with the moon Geoff can you
tell us a little bit more about that
sure it Felicia and it's an orbit that
hasn't been used before so we're gonna
be in a unique first time orbit that I
think other missions in the future will
end up using we're we're synchronized
with the moon so the idea is that the
satellite is traveling between near the
Earth and out to the distance of the
moon twice every lunar month so every
two-and-a-half weeks it comes back
through by the earth you can see in the
video there swings by and then swings
back out and the goal is that by
swinging out to the lunar distance you
can see that the moon is orbiting around
the earth once per month and the moon is
tugging at the satellite so it tugs it
one way and that as it comes around the
other side it tugs it the other way and
what that means is in the end we stay in
a nice stable orbit for decades with no
fuel so the fuel I talked about before
is really to help us get to that orbit
once we're in the orbit we can survive
for decades without any additional
propulsion which makes it a great thing
for science you can continue to do
science for a long period of time so we
can stare at the sky for two-and-a-half
weeks at a crack we collect up all this
exoplanet data that Sarah was mentioning
and then we swing back by the earth we
stop doing science and we point that big
antenna down to the earth we get all
those images down and then we swing back
out for another two and a half weeks so
the orbit is incredible not only because
we don't need to have propulsion once we
get into that stable orbit but also
because it's great for viewing the sky
and being able to do the exoplanet
research for you know that were destined
to do here thanks Jeff so George what
will a test science image look like and
how soon will the science data be
available okay well one of the things
that we did on a very cold night in
January in Cambridge from the roof of
one of the buildings at MIT is to take
an engineering model of our camera up on
the roof and just try to see how well it
would do and the image that you're
seeing is exactly what we did see in a
two second integration so it gives you a
an immediate feeling for how powerful
tests will be in terms of looking at at
million at thousands of stars in every
single field that's what we're seeing
here and in millions of stars around the
entire sky one of the things that is
characteristic of tests is by design the
the cameras actually respond to a much
broader range of light in fact even
going out into the infrared and because
of the way the cameras were optimized to
look for red stars in the in the way
that Sarah described you know 90% of the
stars that we know of in the Milky Way
are our redder and cooler than then is
our Sun this is exactly the thing that
we wanted to do for this particular
mission so for as we as we move forward
with it we expect that once we're in
smooth operation that the test science
images will be released about two months
after they're acquired and they're
deposited at the mast archive at Space
Telescope Science Institute Paul why
can't we just send a probe to an
exoplanet well Felicia the stars are
very far away even with the fastest
satellites we have now it would take
tens of thousands of years for them to
get to even the nearest star and the
stars that we'll be looking at with
tests or many times further away than
that so since we won't be able to travel
there our selves we're gonna have to
make do with studying them remotely from
near the earth in the moon with
satellites like Kepler and upcoming test
satellite so as you know all these
beautiful exoplanet videos and
illustrations we have are all religious
artists illustrations so why is it so
hard to directly image a planet so if
the reason is is that planets are much
fainter than stars the earth is over a
billion times fainter than the Sun and
in addition from a distance of
light-years away the earth looks really
close
to the Sun in order to take a picture of
a planet instead of taking a picture its
excuse me let me just rephrase that in
order to detect the light from the
planet instead of just detecting the
light from the star we need a very
special kind of detector that could
block out the light from the star and
leave the light from the planet right
next to it and the kind of camera that
can do that is called a coronagraph
we've started building those and putting
them on telescopes on the earth they can
block out the light to see planets as
close to the Stars to say Neptune is to
our Sun but if we want to see planets as
close to their star as say the earth is
to the Sun from a distance of many
light-years away we're gonna need more
powerful telescopes and better design
detectors than we have right now NASA's
next great Observatory after the James
Webb Space Telescope would be the W
first mission and it will phi a
demonstration coronagraph on it that
would be capable of detecting planets
like Jupiter around stars like the Sun
so thank you all and before we go into
the Q&A session can we go around for
some closing thoughts from each of the
panelists starting with Paul I'm very
excited that we are now following up the
Kepler mission with the test mission
Kepler will be running out of fuel
sometime this year
and so it's perfect timing that will be
launching tests to continue the great
activity of looking for planets around
stars other than our Sun and thinking
about what it might mean for life in the
universe
well what I'm excited about is just
backing up a moment for a moment when
exoplanets was first starting as a field
we characterized individual planets to
the best we could then with Kepler the
community astronomers were able to find
thousands of planets many with very
little detail and what we're all looking
forward to now is like marrying these
two fields having a lot of detail on
specific ensembles of planets over and
over again so we can move the field
forward but mostly what I'm looking for
is for two is just getting the data
so well I'd like to sort of not exactly
contradict something that Paul said but
just to sort of extend from it a little
bit more it's true enough that these
stars and the planets that we're going
to discover although they're relatively
nearby it would take a long time to get
there
the thing that I think about a lot a lot
when I consider the long-term historical
implications of tests is that there are
a hundred stars within 20 light-years of
Earth that likely have planets and if
you could travel at twenty percent of
the speed of light which people it's a
little speculative and maybe this
doesn't happen until the 22nd or 23rd
century I think there's a high
probability that many of the stars and
planets that they're going to target are
gonna be the ones that have been
discovered by tests ask this will be
robotic missions not not people but I
think the idea is the same so now I
guess my excitement I'm definitely
excited to see this thing launch after
five years of working on it but I think
one of the things I think about is with
every NASA mission we try to engage the
public right you want people to
understand why are we doing these
missions what's the science of the
mission going to help us learn about the
universe and one of the things about
tests that we thought about early on was
how could we engage young people when I
was young nobody had ever seen an
exoplanet we didn't even know there was
maybe such a thing as an exoplanet we
might be alone as far as planets in the
in our solar system might be the only
one so what we did is we put out a call
to kids around the world to say hey why
don't you draw pictures of exoplanets
what do you think an exoplanet would be
like and I think that the goal was to
have kids start thinking about this idea
that it could be planets around other
stars and that there could be life out
there so you see some pictures here of
exoplanet ideas we got from children
from around the world so the goal was to
collect them all up we put them on a
thumb drive we took it down to Cape
Kennedy and we glued that thumb drive on
to the bottom of the satellite so that
all those children's exoplanets will fly
with tests when we launched on April 16
and if you're out there and you're like
oh man that sounds so cool but I missed
my opportunity we do have still wolves
on our social media sites we do have
the ability for you to continue to send
in your pictures so if you really want
to draw us an exoplanet when you think
it would look like sending your
exoplanet drawings and we'll make sure
they get up on our social media sites so
that the everyone can see them we're
kind of building a gallery of all the
photos that's part of what excites me is
that idea of kind of engaging the public
and getting people to start thinking
more and more about exoplanets and what
we might discover thanks Jeff now we're
gonna go ahead and move into the Q&A
session first we're gonna go to
questions on social media we're gonna
answer two questions and then we're
gonna go to the phone line and then from
there if anyone in the audience would
like to ask a question please raise your
hand and we'll give you a mic so for
those who are watching online and you'd
like to ask a question through social
media please use the hashtag ask NASA so
Kendra what do we have on social media
today so we have a two-part question
from Skye and he's asking will test also
be taking photos for potential evidence
of life from the newly found exoplanets
and if so what will be used to find any
sort of heat or life signatures as we
mentioned it's a Finder test is a
discovery mission tests will find
thousands of exoplanets but test does
not have the capability to look at the
atmospheres for signs of life and that
will be the James Webb Space Telescope
when it launches we'll be capable of
doing so thank you so I guess this is a
good follow up other than hoping for
helping test find signs of life what are
the things will James Webb do to help
test or work with tests once it's
launched
so the James Webb Space Telescope is a
very large telescope right George showed
how the Sato just Jeff showed the size
of one of them George showed it whoever
showed it right we have a size some of
the lenses on the best cameras over here
and and it's it fits in the palm of your
hand the James Webb Space Telescope's
set of mirrors comprises a collecting
area that's over six and six and a half
meters across so it's much more capable
of collecting lots of light and dividing
that light up into signals that allow us
to learn things about the sources
looking at so one of the things that
we'll be doing is looking at the the
planets that are discovered by Tess
it'll if since we can't see the planets
themselves would be looking at the
Starlight as it filters through the
atmospheres of those planets if they
have atmospheres and James Webb has
onboard spectrometers which can divide
the light up into its constituent colors
and we can see what kinds of gases might
be in those atmospheres and so that is
how astronomers will be able to use the
combination of tests and James Webb to
advance our understanding of not just
how many exoplanets there are or how big
they are or how far away they are but
maybe what are they made of um are they
- lava worlds are they water worlds are
they
rocky worlds or thin atmospheres like
the earth and do they have atmospheres
that look like our atmosphere or look
completely different that's what we're
gonna learn and we don't know the answer
to that question yet yeah just another
as another point to pause expression the
the fact that the tests planets are
going to be on average ten times closer
than the ones that were discovered by
Kepler it means on average they're going
to be about a hundred times brighter so
if you try to do with with a telescope
like Webb these kinds of observations
from the Kepler targets six and a half
meters wouldn't do it Paul you'd have to
figure out how to make a 65 meter
telescope in space working on it
so and I think just from my standpoint
one of the most exciting things is when
James Webb or next generation space
telescope was first being designed no
exoplanets had been found so it wasn't
part of its primary mission when we
first started to think about it so the
idea that this whole evolution of
exoplanet research has happened within
the timeframe that we've been working on
the telescope and they we'd be able to
kind of re use it and say hey here's
another way you can use this incredible
tool to help us learn about exoplanets
has been a really cool thing for it for
the agency so now we have a question
from a reporter on our phone lines Mike
Cole from Space Flight Insider yes hello
hi go ahead and ask your question
yes my question is for dr. Ricker
how are the CCD cameras that you
developed at MIT new or special or
different from the ones that say a
backyard astronomer might use in their
backyard telescope they are significant
both in degree as well as in scale one
of the things that is Realty CDs that
are used by amateur astronomers I mean I
happen to have been an amateur
astronomers myself and I know a little
bit about how wonderful the work is that
amateurs amateurs can actually do even
following up transient transiting
exoplanets is the C CDs that you can go
out and buy are typically very thin in
terms of the the way in which the light
can actually interact because the
photosensitive depth they're over the
order of two or three microns typically
the test C CDs are a hundred microns
thick and that's how we're able to
actually get out into the near-infrared
and actually see the peak of the
emission that occurs from the cool stars
that test is going to be optimized for
the other difference is that the C CDs
that were especially developed for tests
have extremely low noise we're able to
push the noise down
four of 10 below what Kepler actually
had with the electronics that were
available at the time that they were
designing their instrument and also the
pixels are quite large as you could see
from the wafer that I showed so next
we're going back to social media but if
anyone in the auditorium would like to
ask a question please raise your hand
and we'll get you the microphone so
we'll go ahead with social media and
then we'll directly go right after to
the audience
sure Benjamin is asking can you expand
on how tests will build on Kepler's
discoveries well Kepler was the first of
its kind really and Kepler found all
sorts of planetary systems we didn't
expect like compact multiple planet
systems and these super Earths that are
very close to the star and so many
things but how tests will build on it is
first of all we have an idea of what
we're looking for and we'll know which
systems when we find them that we can
jump on to follow up to look at their
masses get a mass for them and look at
their atmospheres and just learn a lot
more about them the main way we're
building on is just sort of more
logistical or programmatic because
Kepler ironed out like a ton of wrinkles
and how you go from although that data
and the light curves and D trending and
finding drops and brightness and
associating those drops and brightness
with planet candidates or just with junk
or stars or other things so there's two
ways we're building on Kepler okay so
we're actually gonna take one more
question on the phone lines and then
we're gonna go to audience so we've got
Steve Borman from Reuters Steve are you
on
beep alright well we'll hold off on that
question let's go ahead to the audience
angle of the exoplanet system that we
see it what's what's the effect of that
on the problem well that's a good
question because we all just forgot to
mention that transiting planets that go
in front of the star and cause that drop
in brightness of the star they have to
be lined up almost perfectly so let's
say 90 degrees or 87 degrees or you know
maybe a little but it's not very tight
range but we're assuming and we think we
know that all star systems with their
planets it's they have a random
inclination that they're born at so
we're not seeing most of them
unfortunately and the ones we are seeing
are just aligned properly this one way
we're looking at this the systems around
cool stars is very helpful to us because
on average the planets that were most
likely to be interested in that are in
the so-called habitable zone are going
to be relatively close to their host
star and that increases the probability
that you'll get a transit by a factor of
2 or 3 which which is is helpful in
getting many more candidates and we
otherwise just to add one more detail
we're less worried about the system's
will miss entirely because they're not
transiting more concerned if you see one
planet transit are there more planets in
the system and because the test stars
will be so close we can use other
techniques like radial velocity to look
for other planets in the same system
even if they don't transit
thanks now we're gonna go ahead back to
Steve Gorman from Reuters Steve are you
on yeah I just press star one nothing
happen oh well glad to hear you yeah yes
hi thanks for taking my call sorry so my
question is I believe that neccessity
will find 300 or so earth sized or super
earth sized exoplanets with
tests which are and my question is
whether the fact that their size or
super-earth size is that is that make
the likelihood that they might be
habitable for life greater than than
otherwise and also of those 300 or so or
five and respect to find how many of
those might actually be in the so-called
Goldilocks zone well I'll answer the
first part and I'll leave the second
part for George after but what's so
great about tests and the sort of era of
exploration of exoplanets is we don't
have an answer to your question we're
gonna answer that the question is is an
earth-sized planet habitable that means
does it have liquid water or water vapor
in its atmosphere or as a super-earth
sized one and a half times or twice does
that be potentially habitable we're
gonna find that out by getting the sizes
and masses and atmospheres so we can
answer that question for you later we
don't know the answer in advance
we've done a series of simulations there
have been some very clever MIT graduate
students who tried to answer the
question through simulation but we're
really going to know know the answer to
that within a few months after we
actually launch and just to add one more
item to what George was answering was
about how many planets in the actual
Goldilocks zone as the field evolves the
concept of the Goldilocks zone is also
evolving the planet has a very massive
atmosphere it's gonna be in a different
it could still be habitable even if it's
not in the Goldilocks zone so we have to
ask you with that excellent question to
wait until a couple of years from now
when we can give you a real answer
thanks Sarah we're gonna go back to the
audience for any other questions oh
there we go
the thing that was so powerfully simple
about Kepler is planet-finding strategy
was it looked at just one part of the
sky for a very very long time and looked
for these variations Tess of course is
gonna open up the whole rest of the sky
or most of the sky in this survey but
that means that the strategy for finding
planets is different you're not looking
at the same stars for the same amount of
time so I mean I would talk to me about
the strategy about about about we know
how you're gonna use that difference and
is this then optimized for only finding
planets with very short orbits well I'll
answer a portion of that you're right I
mean in order for Kepler to look for
earth sized planets orbiting at the
distance to the earth around a solar
type star the strategy that Kepler used
was spectacularly successful the way
that Tess is actually looking at it by
by using these looking at these stripes
in the sky for only a lunar month allows
us to look for planets orbiting cooler
stars or which the year in that system
might only be you know 10 or 12 10 days
or 2 weeks or so but in addition the
area at the ecliptic poles that test
will actually stare at continuously
first the South and the north over the
two year primary mission that period
will be for a year and we'll be able to
extend two observations that will be
ideally situated for Webb to to look for
atmospheric structure in those in those
particular planets so yeah just to
summarize it's basically the same
strategy with a few more complexities
added on yeah and and of course the the
idea that that the planets are
associated with brighter stars is going
to make everyone's life easier so you're
not now I want to play just blame Paul
about the six and a half metre telescope
this tiny thing that's called Webb but
two for ground-based observers it's the
same thing because they're pushing right
now to bill 30 and 40 meter telescopes
if they were to try to work only with
the planets that were the bulk of the
planets that were discovered by Kepler
they would be talking about having to to
make two or three hundred meter
telescopes for the ground so it's a
similar problem so we're trying to help
everybody we're gonna go ahead and
answer a couple of questions on social
media and depending on time we may stay
on social media so Kendra go ahead what
do we have enough to detect planetary
ring systems around exoplanets
haven't simulated that yet George well I
I think things like tabby star for
example which people may know about
tests will certainly be able to find
systems like that it depends a lot on
what they're the ring structure whether
they're clouds of asteroids I mean
there's a lot of speculative ideas but
that actually brings back something that
I think we're all acutely aware of I
mean Tess is an explorer mission there's
a huge discovery space that is going to
be opened up for the first time by tests
I mean
Kepler looked at about a quarter of a
percent of the sky and that meant that
the discovery space is there for the
other ninety-nine point seven five
percent of the sky so I think this
that's that's the real promise that I
think Tess actually has and even if we
don't have an exact answer for you I
mean the real answer is probably the
Rings have to be pretty big however all
the data is made publicly available
through the mast archive and anyone can
you look at the data you could be very
sophisticated user or we believe our
date will eventually end up on a
crowdsourcing platforms like Kepler said
so kids and stay-at-home parents or
retired engineers and everybody in
between can actually be searching for
rings and other things we have about
enough time for two more social
questions
sure Kumar would like to know how well
test is helping us explore our place in
the universe people have always wanted
to know are we alone in the universe up
until 20 years ago we didn't know of any
planets beyond our own solar system now
we know that at every star in the sky
that you look at there's probably a
family of planets around it and most of
them probably have rocky planets in the
habitable zone so we've expanded our
understanding of our place in the
universe missions like tests will help
us keep learning so that eventually we
can answer the question is are we alone
or we just have the best prime real
estate in the galaxy and I'll just add a
more practical answer to that question
to
and that is that it takes a huge amount
of pure science to enable really like
life-changing discoveries like GPS or
lasers or medical imaging and there is
actually a whole collection of lists
there but what I like about exoplanets
is it's just people love exoplanets it's
not you interstellar or arrival not yet
anyway but you know it draws people into
science and it helps with STEM education
keeping the pipeline moving forward not
so everybody will work on exoplanets but
so they'll go into other technology
areas and industry and defense and other
things Kendra we have one more question
on social media great so Mark wants to
know how will you assess whether or not
the testament mission was successful
there's a formal requirement that NASA
has called a level 1 requirement and
that that means that the test team has
to establish not only detection of
transits but measure masses for at least
50 planets there that are of the size of
what we refer to as a sub Neptune it's a
planet that has less than 4 times the
radius of the earth this requires that
there not only be that it sections that
we're going to make from the images by
actually seeing the the dips and the
light curve but we then have to carry
out follow-up observations including
spectroscopy that will actually allow us
to look at the tugging of the planet
against its host star which causes tiny
motions in the Doppler shift from any
emission lines or whatever features that
you get from the host stars so that so
that is a that is another aspect of the
program that we've been charged to carry
out and that's all the time we have left
thank you so much for joining us if you
have any more questions please send them
to us using the hashtag ask NASA and be
sure to check out our very cool
interactive book and posters on the ABCs
of exoplanets and learn more about the
test mission on our website
at nasa.gov slash tests also be sure to
visit us on all our social media
platforms thanks for joining us today
we'll see you at launch on April 16
