The NASA TESS spacecraft starts sending its first images back to earth.

The four star field cameras that the NASA TESS spacecraft uses to survey the sky, are the only instruments that it carries. It's therefore an incredible relief to be able to confirm that they they are working as planned, along with the data downlink that allows the spacecraft to beam these images back to earth. The image shown here contains over 200,000 stars. The edge of the Coalsack Nebula is in the right upper corner and the bright star Beta Centauri is visible at the lower left edge.

Gordon Webster