NASA's TESS exoplanet-hunting satellite celebrates 5 years in space

[Admin]

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is now in its fifth year scanning the sky for new worlds.

NASA's TESS exoplanet-hunting satellite celebrates 5 years in space : Read more

 

[rod]

NASA Exoplanet Archive

exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu

showing 330 TESS exoplanets now as confirmed. Nice job

 

[rod]

The 330 reported many are still very large exoplanets. Mean = 0.82 Mjup using all the rows reported for TESS. Min is 0.011 Mjup, max is 18.5. Mean radius earth radii = 5.86, min = 0.696, max = 9.937 earth radii size.

 

[Dave]

Happy birthday TESS! Thanks to the analysis of missions like TESS and Kepler we understand planetary systems in our galaxy. Our knowledge of exoplanets has increased tenfold. And still, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. These missions only see a small fraction of the exoplanets out there. Only a planetary system with a plane that lines up with our own can be seen. It is exciting. We have barely scratched the surface about our knowledge concerning exoplanets!

 

[rod]

FYI. The NASA archive site allows downloading of just the TESS group, showing single row entries for values vs. multiple rows when you download and work with the entire lot . I checked that for the 330 listed.

Planet equilibrium temperatures are hot. Average 998K, min 163, and max 3646 K with 1sigma 512/513 K. This makes sense considering the tight orbits reported for TESS exoplanets confirmed. The average a = 0.088 au, min = 0.00622 au, max = 0.90281 au. 1sigma = 0.1131 au. Most are packed in tight to their parent stars.

 

[rod]

Here is another report from TESS, two exoplanets in their habitable zones but as I calculate, deep gravity well exoplanets too.

Astronomers discover two super-Earths orbiting nearby star, https://phys.org/news/2023-05-astronomers-super-earths-orbiting-nearby-star.html

Ref - Two super-Earths at the edge of the habitable zone of the nearby M dwarf TOI-2095, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09220, 18-April-2023.

My note. Using the mass and radius of TOI-2095 b, gravity relative to Earth = 2.6234E+00, escape velocity = 20.24874296 km/s. The exoplanet has a deep gravity well and mean density about 1.1538E+01 g cm^-3.

My notes. Using properties for TOI-2095 c, this is another deep gravity well exoplanet reported. Radius = 1.33 rearth, mass = 7.4 mearth. Surface gravity = 4.1825E+00 or 4 g compared to Earth's 1 g. Escape velocity = 26.37249295 km/s, mean density = 1.7289E+01 g cm^-3.