Meet TESS, NASA's KEPLER Successor; The Satellite Tasked To Find Another Earth

After successfully identifying more than 2,000 exoplanets, NASA's Kepler telescope is ready to retire next year. The baton will be passed to its successor, TESS who is not only tasked to identify more exoplanets, but also to find signs of life and another Earth.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be sent to outer space immediately after Kepler resigns.  According to a report, TESS will be launched next year and its ability to observe the outer space is way better than Kepler. Kepler has the capacity to observe 100,000 stars in one patch per day while the upgraded version, TESS can scan the whole sky looking for brighter stars.   

Experts predict that TESS might just be the telescope to help mankind find another Earth-like habitable planet or probably any signs of life.

@SpaceBrendan @NASAKepler TESS will conduct an "all-sky" survey. We will have overlap with the Kepler field of view. pic.twitter.com/cQpn10OJgJ

— NASA_TESS (@NASA_TESS) May 10, 2016

In a video released by NASA Goddard, they said that since that dawn of time humans are already asking if we are alone in the universe. And with TESS, they believe we now have the technology to finally answer that question. They added, TESS's mission is to "seek worlds beyond our Solar System" and this can be achieved by searching the ''entire sky for shadows of another Earth." NBC news event reported that NASA told Congress that they now have the technology to find alien life.

NASA is known for evading questions pertaining to alien life, UFOs and the like, but with TESS they are more driven to finally put a stop to conspiracy theories and to once and for all prove whether or not alien life exists.

Join @NASA_TESS & @TESSatMIT on May 18 for the first TESS Q&A session hosted by the TESS science team @MIT #AskTESS pic.twitter.com/suhXVuRYK4

— NASA_TESS (@NASA_TESS) May 12, 2016

TESS is a project of NASA and MIT. It will use four cameras to scan the entire sky looking for Earth-like planets. NASA said the mission will observe 500,000 brightest stars in the sky. While Kepler found more than 2,000 exoplanets, they are expecting TESS to do better than that and find 3,000 Exoplanet candidates.

NASA added that by "using TESS data, missions like the James Webb Space Telescope can determine specific characteristics of these planets, including whether they could support life."