The first TESS photo captures
more than 200 thousand stars
The first test image from one of the four cameras aboard NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) captures a swath of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy. TESS is expected to cover more than 400 times the amount of sky shown in the image when using all four of its cameras during science operations.
The TESS Satellite, which launched on a mission to find alien worlds circling stars close to the sun, zoomed within about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of the moon, NASA officials said. This long-planned "gravity assist" maneuver was designed to help TESS reach its final science orbit, a long and looping path around Earth that no spacecraft has ever occupied before.
The TESS Satellite, which launched on a mission to find alien worlds circling stars close to the sun, zoomed within about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of the moon, NASA officials said. This long-planned "gravity assist" maneuver was designed to help TESS reach its final science orbit, a long and looping path around Earth that no spacecraft has ever occupied before.
