NASA’s go-to exoplanet hunter enters safe mode, halting observations

NASA’s primary planet-hunting spacecraft has paused its search for alien worlds.

On Monday (October 10), NASA’s TESS mission entered safe mode. While the telescope is believed to be stable, according to the space agency’s Wednesday (October 12) announcement, it means that science observations are suspended. NASA says recovery procedures are underway, but “could take several days.”

TESS’ full name — Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — outlines how it has operated to detect more than 250 exoplanets (and thousands of candidates) so far. As the four-year-old mission surveys stars, it watches for dips in brightness. If these blinks happen periodically, it’s a sign that a planet orbits a star and eclipses some of its light from Earth’s perspective when it passes in front.

But this work is currently on pause. “Preliminary investigation revealed that the TESS flight computer experienced a reset,” NASA officials announced in the statement. The space agency also relayed information from the TESS operations team, which reported that the spacecraft has science data onboard that hasn’t been sent to the ground yet. Fortunately, that data “appears to be safely stored.”

An illustration that depicts a planet transiting in front of its parent star. This eclipse causes a dip in the star’s brightness. MARK GARLICK/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

Why exoplanets matter

Exoplanet science has come a long way since 1995, when Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz made the first discovery of a planet orbiting a Sun-like star. This celestial body, called 51 Pegasi b, is unlike anything found in the Solar System. Its strange attributes include a gaseous mass roughly half of Jupiter and a tight orbit of just 4.2 days around its parent star. MAyor and Queloz would later go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.

The oddity of early exoplanet discoveries like 51 Pegasi b highlighted the importance of researching these faraway worlds.

TESS inherited the task of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, which launched in March 2009 to survey a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. During its primary mission, and later an extension called K2, Kepler collected data that confirmed the existence of 2,600 exoplanets. It also indicated that the night sky is filled with “billions of hidden planets.”

TESS launched in April 2018 to observe an area of sky 400 times larger than what Kepler monitored. As TESS identified new exoplanets, astronomers could categorize them, learn about star-planet relationships different from the Solar System and make predictions about how planets evolve.

NASA’s primary planet-hunting spacecraft has paused its search for alien worlds. On Monday (October 10), NASA’s TESS mission entered safe mode. While the telescope is believed to be stable, according to the space agency’s Wednesday (October 12) announcement, it means that science observations are suspended. NASA says recovery procedures are underway, but “could take several…

NASA’s primary planet-hunting spacecraft has paused its search for alien worlds. On Monday (October 10), NASA’s TESS mission entered safe mode. While the telescope is believed to be stable, according to the space agency’s Wednesday (October 12) announcement, it means that science observations are suspended. NASA says recovery procedures are underway, but “could take several…