Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS ) will search for planets transiting bright and nearby stars. TESS has been selected by NASA for launch in 2017 as an Astrophysics Explorer mission. The spacecraft will be placed into a highly elliptical 13.7-day orbit around the Earth. During its two-year mission, TESS will employ four wide-field optical CCD cameras to monitor at least 200,000 main-sequence dwarf stars with I[subscript C] (approximately less than) 13 for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. Each star will be observed for an interval ranging from one month to one year, depending mainly on the star's ecliptic latitude. The longest observing intervals will be for stars near the ecliptic poles, which are the optimal locations for follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope. Brightness measurements of preselected target stars will be recorded every 2 min, and full frame images will be recorded every 30 min. TESS stars will be 10-100 times brighter than those surveyed by the pioneering Kepler mission. This will make TESS planets easier to characterize with follow-up observations. TESS is expected to find more than a thousand planets smaller than Neptune, including dozens that are comparable in size to the Earth. Public data releases will occur every four months, inviting immediate community-wide efforts to study the new planets. The TESS legacy will be a catalog of the nearest and brightest stars hosting transiting planets, which will endure as highly favorable targets for detailed investigations

The X-ray Afterglows of GRB 020813 and GRB 021004 with Chandra HETGS: Possible Evidence for a Supernova Prior to GRB 020813

We report on the detection of an emission line near 1.3 keV, which we associate with blue-shifted hydrogen-like sulfur (S XVI), in a 76.8 ksec Chandra HETGS spectrum of the afterglow of GRB 020813. The line is detected at 3.3 sigma significance. We also find marginal evidence for a line possibly due to hydrogen-like silicon (Si XIV) with the same blue-shift. A line from Fe is not detected, though a very low significance Ni feature may be present. A thermal model fits the data adequately, but a reflection model may provide a better fit. There is marginal evidence that the equivalent width of the S XVI line decrease as the burst fades. We infer from these results that a supernova likely occurred >~ 2 months prior to the GRB. We find no discrete or variable spectral features in the Chandra HETGS spectrum of the GRB 021004 afterglow.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Ap

Asteroseismology of massive stars with the TESS mission: the runaway Beta Cep pulsator PHL 346 = HN Aqr

We report an analysis of the first known Beta Cep pulsator observed by the TESS mission, the runaway star PHL 346 = HN Aqr. The star, previously known as a singly-periodic pulsator, has at least 34 oscillation modes excited, 12 of those in the g-mode domain and 22 p modes. Analysis of archival data implies that the amplitude and frequency of the dominant mode and the stellar radial velocity were variable over time. A binary nature would be inconsistent with the inferred ejection velocity from the Galactic disc of 420 km/s, which is too large to be survivable by a runaway binary system. A kinematic analysis of the star results in an age constraint (23 +- 1 Myr) that can be imposed on asteroseismic modelling and that can be used to remove degeneracies in the modelling process. Our attempts to match the excitation of the observed frequency spectrum resulted in pulsation models that were too young. Hence, asteroseismic studies of runaway pulsators can become vital not only in tracing the evolutionary history of such objects, but to understand the interior structure of massive stars in general. TESS is now opening up these stars for detailed asteroseismic investigation.Comment: accepted for ApJ

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants. TESS stars will be far brighter than those surveyed by previous missions; thus, TESS planets will be easier to characterize in follow-up observations. For the first time it will be possible to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits, and atmospheres of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars.Ames Research Center (NNG09FD65C)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX08BA61A)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNG12FG09C)United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNG14FC03C)Goddard Space Flight Cente

The Asteroseismic Poltential of TESS: Exoplanet-Host Stars

New insights on stellar evolution and stellar interior physics are being made possible by asteroseismology. Throughout the course of the Kepler mission, asteroseismology has also played an important role in the characterization of exoplanet-host stars and their planetary systems. The upcoming NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be performing a near all-sky survey for planets that transit bright nearby stars. In addition, its excellent photometric precision, combined with its fine time sampling and long intervals of uninterrupted observations, will enable asteroseismology of solar-type and red-giant stars. Here we develop a simple test to estimate the detectability of solar-like oscillations in TESS photometry of any given star. Based on an all-sky stellar and planetary synthetic population, we go on to predict the asteroseismic yield of the TESS mission, placing emphasis on the yield of exoplanet-host stars for which we expect to detect solar-like oscillations. This is done for both the target stars (observed at a 2-minute cadence) and the full-frame-image stars (observed at a 30-minute cadence). A similar exercise is also conducted based on a compilation of known host stars. We predict that TESS will detect solar-like oscillations in a few dozen target hosts (mainly subgiant stars but also in a smaller number of F dwarfs), in up to 200 low-luminosity red-giant hosts, and in over 100 solar-type and red-giant known hosts, thereby leading to a threefold improvement in the asteroseismic yield of exoplanet-host stars when compared to Kepler's.Science and Technology Facilities Council (Great Britain

Tess data for asteroseismology: Timing verification

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is NASA´s latest space telescope dedicated to the discovery of transiting exoplanets around nearby stars. Besides the main goal of the mission, asteroseismology is an important secondary goal and very relevant for the high-quality time series that TESS will make during its two-year all-sky survey. Using TESS for asteroseismology introduces strong timing requirements, especially for coherent oscillators. Although the internal clock on board TESS is precise in its own time, it might have a constant drift. Thus, it will need calibration, or else offsets might inadvertently be introduced. Here, we present simultaneous ground- and space-based observations of primary eclipses of several binary systems in the Southern ecliptic hemisphere, used to verify the reliability of the TESS timestamps. From 12 contemporaneous TESS/ground observations, we determined a time offset equal to 5.8 ± 2.5 s, in the sense that the barycentric time measured by TESS is ahead of real time. The offset is consistent with zero at the 2.3σ level. In addition, we used 405 individually measured mid-eclipse times of 26 eclipsing binary stars observed solely by TESS in order to test the existence of a potential drift with a monotonic growth (or decay) affecting the observations of all stars. We find a drift corresponding to σ drift = 0.009 ± 0.015 s day-1. We find that the measured offset is of a size that will not become an issue for comparing ground-based and space data for coherent oscillations for most of the targets observed with TESS.Fil: Essen, Carolina von. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Lund, Mikkel N.. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Handberg, Rasmus. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Sosa, Marina Soledad. University Aarhus; Dinamarca. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Astrofísica La Plata. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas. Instituto de Astrofísica La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Gadeberg, Julie Thiim. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Kjeldsen, Hans. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Vanderspek, Roland K.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Mortensen, Dina S.. University Aarhus; DinamarcaFil: Mallonn, M.. Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam; AlemaniaFil: Mammana, Luis Antonio. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito"; ArgentinaFil: Morgan, Edward H.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Villaseñor, Jesus Noel S.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Fausnaugh, Michael M.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Ricker, George R.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados Unido

Spectral Lag Relations in GRB Pulses Detected with HETE-2

Using a pulse-fit method, we investigate the spectral lags between the traditional gamma-ray band (50-400 keV) and the X-ray band (6-25 keV) for 8 GRBs with known redshifts (GRB 010921, GRB 020124, GRB 020127, GRB 021211, GRB 030528, GRB 040924, GRB 041006, GRB 050408) detected with the WXM and FREGATE instruments aboard the HETE-2 satellite. We find several relations for the individual GRB pulses between the spectral lag and other observables, such as the luminosity, pulse duration, and peak energy (Epeak). The obtained results are consistent with those for BATSE, indicating that the BATSE correlations are still valid at lower energies (6-25 keV). Furthermore, we find that the photon energy dependence for the spectral lags can reconcile the simple curvature effect model. We discuss the implication of these results from various points of view.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for the publication in PASJ (minor corrections