NASA to launch planet-hunting mission with Google-backed satellite

NASA this week announced plans to launch two new projects: a mission to search for new planets, and an International Space Station (ISS) experiment to analyze X-rays emitted from neutron stars. Both are slated to launch in 2017, under the agency's Astrophysics Explorer Program. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), backed by Google and MIT, uses a set of onboard cameras to scan the skies for so-called exoplanets orbiting bright and nearby stars. Its objective is to discover terres...