07 Mar, 2018
Blog 43: Kepler times 400
As early as next month or as late as June, NASA plans to launch the next generation planet-finder, an orbiting telescope called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will have a field of view 400 times that of the Kepler instrument. Since its launch on March 6, 2009, Kepler has discovered 3,705 confirmed planets with 612 in multiple-planet systems and 4,496 candidate planets, according to the latest count.
The new orbiter promises to open the heavens, in terms of planetary