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NASA's new planet-hunting mission is the

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Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite - or TESS.

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It's got four cameras to take a near all-sky

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survey in search of planets around the nearest,

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brightest stars.

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How do you actually find planets?

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TESS records the small dips in brightness of stars

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as planets transit, or cross, in front of them.

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Every two weeks, TESS sends the data to Earth,

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about 10 billion pixels at a time.

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When it first arrives it's pretty muddy.

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At NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley,

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a supercomputer runs a bunch of code

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to clean up the data.

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The code is developed by the Science Processing

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Operations Center - or SPOC.

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And you can think of its job as a "Star-wash."

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The raw data goes through a 5-step cleanup.

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First, the star data is spritzed to convert

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pixels into measurements of brightness.

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Next, the brightness measurements are lined up

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into a time series we call a "light curve."

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Then, the grime in the data from the movement of

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the spacecraft is rubbed away, leaving behind

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the pure signals of the star.

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With all this buffing, we can see a change

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in the star's brightness, but it could be

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caused by any number of things:

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a crossing planet, the eclipse of a

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double-star system, or some other cosmic activity.

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So, the last step in our Starwash is

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to give each light curve some ratings.

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As the star data exits the pipeline, scientists

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examine it closely to decide what it might be,

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perhaps a planet?

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And then they send it on its way for follow-up

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observations that will confirm whether

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we have found a planet.