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May 13, 2026<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has released its most complete view of the starry sky to date, filling in gaps from previous observations. Nearly 6,000 colored dots scattered across the image show the locations of either confirmed or candidate exoplanets \u2014 worlds beyond our solar system \u2014 identified by the mission as of September 2025 at the end of TESS\u2019s second extended mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last eight years, TESS has become a fire hose of exoplanet science,\u201d said Rebekah Hounsell, a TESS associate project scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County<\/a> and NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/a> in Greenbelt, Maryland. \u201cIt\u2019s helped us find planets of all different sizes, from tiny Mercury-like ones to those larger than Jupiter. Some of them are even in the habitable zone, where liquid water might be possible on the surface, an important factor in our search for life beyond Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n The TESS mission<\/a> scans a wide swath of the sky, called a sector, for about a month at a time using its four cameras. These long stares allow the spacecraft to track the brightness changes of tens of thousands of stars, looking for variations in their light that might come from orbiting planets.<\/p>\n Researchers assembled an all-sky mosaic made of 96 sectors observed between April 2018, when TESS began its work, and September 2025.<\/p>\n The blue dots in the image mark the locations of nearly 700 confirmed planets, as of September 9. This menagerie includes worlds that may be covered by volcanoes<\/a>, are being destroyed by their stars<\/a>, or orbit two stars<\/a> \u2014 experiencing double sunrises and sunsets each day. The orange dots represent more than 5,000 candidate planets that are awaiting verification.<\/p>\n To date, scientists have confirmed<\/a> over 6,270 exoplanets<\/a> using missions like TESS, NASA\u2019s retired Kepler Space Telescope<\/a>, and other facilities.<\/p>\n Also captured in the mosaic is the bright plane of our Milky Way galaxy, seen as a glowing arc through the center. The bright white ovals in the lower left are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. These satellite galaxies are located 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more we dig into the large TESS dataset, especially using automated algorithms, the more surprises we find,\u201d said Allison Youngblood, the TESS project scientist at NASA Goddard. \u201cIn addition to planets, TESS has helped us study rivers of young stars<\/a>, observe dynamic galactic behavior<\/a>, and monitor asteroids near Earth. As TESS fills in more of the night sky, there\u2019s no knowing what it might see next.\u201d<\/p>\n You could discover the next exoplanet! Join the Planet Hunters TESS<\/a> citizen science project, and you\u2019ll learn how to read light curves \u2014 plots of light data from distant stars \u2014 to find telltale signals from orbiting exoplanets.<\/p>\n By <\/strong>Jeanette Kazmierczak<\/strong><\/a>
<\/strong>NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/strong><\/a>, Greenbelt, Md.<\/strong><\/p>\n