NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Mission Ground-Based Follow-Ups

Abstract

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission has found thousands of exoplanets through its all-sky survey. Every detection made by TESS is followed up with a ground-based telescope to either confirm the detection or conclude that it may be a false positive. Through data reduction, aperture photometry, light curve generation, and checking for nearby eclipsing binaries, we analyzed data for numerous planet candidates, such as TOI 3545.01 and TOI 2038.01. Data from TOI 2038.01 showed a plausible ingress, with none of the nearby stars showing clear evidence to be responsible for a false positive. Data from TOI 3545.01 also showed strong evidence for the existence of a transiting body, with nearby reference stars also likely not responsible for a false positive. Analyzing the planet candidates gathered by TESS allows for the efforts of the TESS mission to be translated into the detection of clear false positives and new exoplanets.