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NASA funds telescope designed to spot Earth-like planets

NASA has selected a planet-tracking satellite for funding, according to a press release that the administration released on Friday. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), proposed by researchers at MIT, will use four telescopes to conduct a survey of the sky, looking specifically for terrestrial planets in the habitable zones surrounding the nearest and brightest stars. Its method of spotting the planets will be similar to that of the Kepler telescope currently in orbit.

MIT’s TESS proposal, along with 11 others, was originally selected for evaluation in October 2011. The project is now set to receive up to $200 million in funding to complete the mission under NASA’s Astrophysics Explorer Program.

While the Kepler telescope is able to resolve distant planets in one specific area of space, Kepler is limited to looking at only 0.28 percent of the entire sky. TESS will be able to survey the entire sky but will be limited to resolving details of nearby stars. It will be able to spot planets ranging in size from Earth equivalents to gas giants.

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MIT launching certificate program based on OpenCourseWare, open source platform

A decade after MIT began to put its teaching materials and lectures online via the OpenCourseWare platform, the university has announced that it will leverage these materials to provide an online certification program, currently termed MITx. Although these certificates won't have the same weight as an MIT degree, they will indicate mastery of specific subject areas. The whole system will be built on top of an open-source software platform, which may enable other universities to follow in MIT's footsteps.

The system will provide a complete online learning environment, with labs and the possibility for interactions with other students. After completing a set of course materials, students will get the chance to demonstrate their mastery of the topic, presumably through a test or interactions with MIT staff. You'll have to pay for the resulting certificate, but the preliminary noises suggest that they'll be a whole lot cheaper than an MIT education. Both OpenCourseWare and the MITx teaching materials will remain free—it's just the certificate that will cost money.

The first test of the system will launch in the spring. Once the kinks are worked out, more courses will follow, and the underlying technology will be open sourced.

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