FILE PHOTO: TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is shown in this NASA photo obtained by Reuters on March 28, 2018. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - A planet-hunting orbital telescope designed to detect worlds beyond our solar system discovered two distant planets this week five months after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, officials said on Thursday.
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS, made an early discovery of "super-Earth" and "hot Earth" planets in solar systems at least 49 light-years away, marking the satellite's first discovery since its April launch. TESS is on a two-year, $337 million (254.26 million pounds) mission to expand astronomers' known catalogue of so-called exoplanets, worlds circling distant stars.
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