Milky Way in northern hemisphere skies, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) image mosaic. The mission divided the northern sky into 13 sectors, each of which was imaged for nearly a month by the spacecraft's four cameras. Among the many notable celestial objects visible is the glowing band (left) of the Milky Way, our home galaxy seen edgewise, the Andromeda galaxy (oval, center left), our nearest large galactic neighbour located 2.5 million light-years away, and the North America Nebula (lower left), which is 1, 700 light-years away. The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS's camera system. Data obtained during TESS's second year of science operations, completed in July 2020. |