The Hunt for Exoplanets Turns to Earth's Backyard

NASA's next planet-hunting mission will take a census of Earth's cosmic neighborhood. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS), which is scheduled to launch to Earth orbit in 2017 or 2018, will observe at least 200,000 relatively nearby stars during its two-year mission, and it should end up finding thousands of alien worlds, NASA officials said. "The cool thing about TESS is that, one of these days, I'll be able to go out in the country with my daughter and point to a star and say, 'Ther