Nov 7 - News from NASA's Planet-Hunter

November 7 News from NASA's Planet-Hunter by:

View larger. | View from the Death Star? No. A new mosaic of the southern sky via NASA’s TESS planet-hunter. You can see the glowing band of the Milky Way (left), the Orion Nebula (top), and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center). The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS’s camera system. Image via NASA/MIT/TESS/Ethan Kruse. Read more.

TESS planet-hunter shows you the southern sky TESS stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It's NASA's newest planet-hunter, designed to add to the number of 4,000+ known exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant suns. The awesome new mosaic of the southern sky was created from 208 images taken by the TESS spacecraft during its first year of science operations. Within the image above, TESS has discovered 29 exoplanets and more than 1,000 candidate planets that astronomers are now investigating. Read more, see images, watch a video.  TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense gravitational tides break it apart into a stream of gas. This disruption occurred in TESS’s continuous viewing zone, letting astronomers watch it from start to finish. Watch a video. The TESS spacecraft is finding hundreds of exoplanets ... and it’s poised to find thousands more. But will we find another Earth? Read more from astronomers engaged in the search.

EarthSky lunar calendars are back in stock We're guaranteed to sell out, get one while you can! Your support means the world to us and allows us to keep going. Purchase here.

Next few mornings … Red Mars and blue-white Spica Watch for them in the east before sunup. Cool color contrast, and, yay ... Mars is back! Read more.

Who will see the Mercury transit on Monday? View larger. | Although much more common than transits of Venus, a transit of Mercury happens only 14 times in the 21st century (2001 to 2100). The coming Mercury transit will be Monday, November 11. The next one after that will be in 2032. Monday's Mercury transit will be visible from much of the globe. The entire transit will be seen from South America, eastern North America, and far-western Africa. Click here for details on how to watch. Image via Eclipsewise.  Submit your photo to EarthSky here! Did a friend forward EarthSkyNews to you? Click here to get your own subscription!

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