MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research announced yesterday that the TESS object of interest (TOI) catalog has passed 5,000 planet candidates. I think that means it’s only a matter of weeks before the confirmed exoplanet count surpasses that mark as well. As it stands, per the Exoplanet Archive, there are 4,903 exoplanets as of January 10.

Currently, the TESS mission is in its first extended mission, which is expected to run until at least 2025, and their catalog of candidates has more than doubled in the past year. TOI manager Katharine Hesse noted: With data from the first year of the extended mission, we have found dozens of additional candidates to TOIs found during the prime mission. I am excited to see how many multi-planet systems we can find during the rest of the extended mission and in upcoming years with TESS.

Congratulations to the TESS team. We look forward to thousands more candidates in the future.

More Information

MIT press release