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Finding new planets that could support life

Finding new planets that could support life

Searching for Habitable Worlds

Finding new planets that could support life

Life outside of our solar system

In February 2017, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water — the key to life as we know it.

MIT scientists are continuing to use new methods and instrumentation to seek out new worlds that could show we are not alone in the universe.

Highlights

Quote from Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Science, Physics, and Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT Experiment Shows Some Life Can Survive in Exoplanet-Like Conditions, Gizmodo

This should open up—continue to push—astronomers on what kinds of planets might be habitable

Sara Seager, Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Science, Physics, and Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT

Experiment Shows Some Life Can Survive in Exoplanet-Like Conditions, Gizmodo

Dive into TESS's Southern Sky Panorama

Dive into TESS's Southern Sky Panorama

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spent a year imaging the southern sky in its search for worlds beyond our solar system. Dive into a mosaic of these images to see what TESS has found so far. Music: “Phenomenon" from Above and Below Written and produced by Lars Leonhard Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS

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TESS team wins medal

TESS team is awarded NASA's Silver Achievement Medal

TESS team wins medal

two men holding a certificate

On Sept. 5, NASA awarded a Silver Achievement Medal to the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team. George Ricker, TESS principal investigator and senior research scientist at the Kavli Institute, says that "the NASA Silver Achievement Medal recognizes the revolutionary impact that TESS is now having on the emerging field of exoplanets, as well as TESS’ revealing of exciting new insights in stellar and extragalactic astrophysics."

Read it at MIT News →

Quote from Natalia Geurrero, TESS TOI Manager at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research TESS’s First Year of Science, Sky and Telescope

Thus far, TESS has identified 993 planet candidates in the 12 southern sectors.

Natalia Geurrero, TESS TOI Manager at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research

TESS’s First Year of Science, Sky and Telescope

TESS discovers "Super-Earth" and two "Sub-Neptune" planets

Planet-hunting satellite TESS finds 'missing link' exoplanets

TESS discovers "Super-Earth" and two "Sub-Neptune" planets

cartoon of three planets orbiting a star

"TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover," MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research postdoctoral scholar Maximilian Günther said. "It is an exceptional laboratory for not one, but many reasons -- it really ticks all the boxes."

Read it at CNN →

Earth-sized planet discovered

First Earth-sized planet discovered by TESS

Earth-sized planet discovered

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, has discovered its first Earth-sized exoplanet. The planet, named HD 21749c, is the smallest world outside our solar system that TESS has identified yet. ... “For stars that are very close by and very bright, we expected to find up to a couple dozen Earth-sized planets,” says lead author and TESS member Diana Dragomir, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “And here we are — this would be our first one, and it’s a milestone for TESS. It sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable.”

Read it at MIT News →

NASA's TESS rounds up its first planets, snares far-flung supernovae

NASA's TESS rounds up its first planets, snares far-flung supernovae

TESS has found three confirmed exoplanets in the data from the space telescope’s four cameras.

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Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

TESS takes off

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Falcon9 rocket taking off from launch pad

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) lifted off at 6:51 p.m. EDT on April 18, 2018. After launch, TESS will use its fuel to reach orbit around the Earth, with a gravity assist from the moon. That will enable it to have a long-term mission beyond its two-year mission.

Read it at CNN →

Quote from Sara Seager Deputy Science Director of TESS, MIT professor of planetary science and physics

If we can identify another Earth-like planet, it comes full circle, from thinking everything revolves around our planet to knowing there are lots of other Earths out there.

Sara Seager

Deputy Science Director of TESS, MIT professor of planetary science and physics

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Finding new worlds

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched on April 18, 2018, will travel through space, identifying more than 20,000 extrasolar planets orbiting a diverse range of stars. These exoplanets will range from Earth-sized planets to much larger gas giants. TESS is expected to catalog a sample of around 500 Earth-sized and “super Earth” planets, or those with radii less than twice that of Earth, including a subset of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars.

Read more about TESS →

Seven Earth-sized planets

Discovering ‘habitable-zone’ planets

Seven Earth-sized planets

Artist illustration of the TRAPPIST-1 system with seven planets.

Scientists used observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) telescope, as well as other ground-based observatories, to identify seven planets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star. All seven planets are Earth-sized and terrestrial — and all could potentially harbor liquid water.

Listen to it at NPR →

Quote from Thomas Zurbuchen Associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate

This discovery gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not just a matter of if, but when.

Thomas Zurbuchen

Associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate

The Team

  • Sara Seager

    Sara Seager

    Professor

  • George Ricker

    George Ricker

    TESS Principal Investigator

  • Benjamin Weiss

    Professor

  • Julien de Wit

    Assistant Professor

  • Roland Vanderspek

    TESS Deputy Principal Investigator

News

  • A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds

    December 28, 2023

  • Astronomers discover six planets orbiting a nearby sun-like star

    November 29, 2023

  • Newly discovered planet has longest orbit yet detected by the TESS mission

    August 30, 2023

  • A telescope’s last view

    May 30, 2023

  • This star ate its own planet. Earth may share the same fate

    May 3, 2023

  • Green comets, new planets, and images that have astronomers rethinking the Big Bang

    January 19, 2023

  • Basic building blocks to the stars

    December 22, 2022

  • Astronomers discover a multiplanet system nearby

    June 15, 2022

  • A “hot Jupiter’s” dark side is revealed in detail for first time

    February 21, 2022

  • TESS Science Office at MIT hits milestone of 5,000 exoplanet candidates

    January 20, 2022

  • TESS discovers a planet the size of Mars but with the makeup of Mercury

    December 2, 2021

  • One year on this giant, blistering hot planet is just 16 hours long

    November 23, 2021

  • TESS Science Conference II draws nearly 700 virtual attendees

    August 25, 2021

  • Research updates from TESS: Hunting for worlds beyond our solar system

    February 10, 2021

  • TESS discovers four exoplanets orbiting a nearby sun-like star

    January 28, 2021

  • Astronomers discover an Earth-sized “pi planet” with a 3.14-day orbit

    September 21, 2020

  • Lava oceans may not explain the brightness of some hot super-Earths

    August 4, 2020

  • TESS mission discovers massive ice giant

    July 1, 2020

  • How do scientists discover planets light years away? There's an art to it, MIT researchers say

    September 17, 2019

  • Ask Ethan: What Has TESS Accomplished In Its First Year Of Science Operations?

    August 10, 2019

  • TESS Completes First Year of Survey, Turns to Northern Sky

    July 26, 2019

  • NASA exoplanet hunter racks up bizarre worlds and exploding stars

    January 8, 2019

  • NASA’s TESS shares first science image in hunt to find new worlds

    September 17, 2018

  • Liftoff! TESS, NASA's new planet-hunting space telescope, is now in space

    April 18, 2018

  • Billions of exoplanets? Count on it, say space scientists

    December 31, 2017

  • The search for another Earth is happening right in our backyard

    February 23, 2017

Please contact Jennifer Rosales if you are considering a gift to the School of Science.

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Keeping Aging Brains Healthy

By understanding how brain function changes with age, we can develop therapies to improve brain health and eradicate diseases like Alzheimer’s.

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