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FAQ
What is TESS?
TESS is a NASA space telescope orbiting between the Earth and the Moon. TESS has 4 cameras that image about 5% of the entire sky every few minutes, with the primary goal of discovering planets around other stars. So far TESS has discovered over 500 exoplanets. Since all of the TESS data is public, anyone from around the world can use TESS to study anything in the sky. For this project we're using TESS to look for rapid explosions, but astronomers around the world use it for a range of different science.
You can find more information about TESS here: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/tess/
How can I look at TESS data?
Since the TESS data is public, anyone can use it for science. TESS data can be a little complicated to work with, but one of the best ways to do this is with the python program TESSreduce. We use TESSreduce to do all of our data reduction and analysis.
You can find TESSreduce and info on how to use it here: https://github.com/CheerfulUser/TESSreduce
How far away are the objects that we are looking at?
The objects we're detecting could be within our galaxy (nearby), or in other galaxies (far away). Most of the objects we detect in our galaxy will be stellar flares, and thus will be hundreds to thousands of light years away. Objects in other galaxies could be millions to billions of light years away from us.
Why do stars look so blocky?
TESS has very low spatial resolution, meaning that light from a star only falls on about 9 pixels. This means that TESS will never take the amazing high detailed images like Hubble and JWST. The low spatial resolution also makes it difficult to pinpoint where our discovered transients come from - often when we compare locations from TESS to other higher resolution telescopes, there can be multiple stars and galaxies in the same location where TESS only sees one star.
Why are the light curves all 27 days long?
As TESS orbits the Earth, the positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon change so the telescope needs to be repositioned. By repositioning, TESS halts its observations and looks towards new patches of the sky.