NASA's TESS Releases Most Complete Night Sky Mosaic After Eight Years

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has released its most complete all-sky mosaic, built from 96 sectors captured between April 2018 and September 2025. The image includes 679 confirmed exoplanets (blue dots) and 5,165 candidate exoplanets (orange dots). The mosaic features the Milky Way's plane as a glowing arc and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. TESS's four onboard cameras, each with four CCD sensors and seven lenses, monitor 24°×90° strips of sky for 27 days at a two-second cadence. The mission's second extended mission ended in September 2025. Rebekah Hounsell, TESS project scientist at UMBC and NASA Goddard, noted the satellite has found planets from Mercury-size to larger than Jupiter, some in habitable zones. Allison Youngblood, TESS project scientist at NASA Goddard, highlighted discoveries of young star rivers, galactic behavior, and near-Earth asteroids. The mosaic was credited to NASA/MIT/TESS and Veselin Kostov of the University of Maryland College Park.