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Engineers have been assembling and testing TESS since its arrival at NASA's Space Center.
自从抵达NASA太空中心以来，工程师们一直在组装和测试TESS。
Its mission is to locate exoplanets that orbit a star, similar to the way the Earth orbits the Sun and see whether these planets can support life.
它的任务是寻找围绕恒星的系外行星，类似于地球围绕太阳，以及这些行星是否有生命存在。
To find these new worlds, TESS will look for dips in the brightness of stars indicating planets passing in front of them.
为了发现新世界，TESS会寻找有明暗对比的亮行星，这就意味着行星出现在了我们面前。
It is going to survey nearly the entire sky, looking at hundreds of thousands of stars up to millions of stars,
它将勘察几乎整片天空，观察数十万甚至数百万的恒星，
looking for new planets orbiting these other stars.
寻找围绕其他恒星旋转的新行星。
TESS will divide the sky into sections, looking at each slice for 27 days before switching to the next area.
TESS会把天空划分成几个部分，每个部分观察27天之后才会转战下一部分。
And it is done, we will have surveyed 85 percent of the sky for science of exoplanets.
我们将会对宇宙中百分之八十五的地外行星进行科学检测。
TESS will be building on the mission of the Kepler Space Telescope that launched in 2009, but will soon run out of fuel.
2009年发射的开普勒太空望远镜燃料即将耗尽，TESS将在它的基础上继续进行勘察任务。
Kepler discovered about 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, but they are far away.
开普勒发现了大约2600颗已被证实的系外行星，但它们都很遥远。
TESS will spend about two years searching for new worlds closer to our solar system, planets orbiting stars close enough and bright enough,
TESS将花费大约两年时间寻找更靠近太阳系的新世界，围绕恒星旋转的行星会离我们更近更明亮。
so earthbound astronomers can study them in more detail.
以便天文学家可以更详细地研究它们。
We can do follow-up measurements such as getting the mass of the planet and looking at the atmosphere
我们可以做后续测量，比如行星的质量和大气
and searching for things like water vapor and even maybe signs of life on the planet.
寻找水蒸气等物质，甚至是生命迹象。
TESS is the mission that is going to detect some of those planets that we first dream of going to in a realistic way.
TESS要探测的行星实际上是我们一开始就希望去的行星。
Scientists hope to one day send robots to these planets for further exploration.
科学家希望有一天能够将机器人发射到这些行星，从而进行进一步探索。
I'm Faith Lapidus VOA news.
VOA新闻，法斯·拉皮德斯报道。
