{"id":13390,"date":"2016-10-21T15:33:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T19:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13390"},"modified":"2016-10-21T15:34:40","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T19:34:40","slug":"citizen-scientists-find-debris-disk-around-red-dwarf-where-planets-can-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13390","title":{"rendered":"Citizen scientists find debris disk around red dwarf where planets can form"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another example\u00a0of citizen scientists contributing to a published scientific finding:<\/p>\n

Citizen Scientists Discover Potential New Exoplanet Hunting Ground<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Via a NASA-led citizen science project, eight people with no formal training in astrophysics helped discover what could be a fruitful new place to search for planets outside our solar system \u2013 a large disk of gas and dust encircling a star known as a circumstellar disk.<\/p>\n

\"awi0005x3s-cropped1\"<\/a>
Artist\u2019s concept of the newly discovered disk. Credits: Jonathan Holden<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A paper<\/a>, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and coauthored by eight citizen scientists involved in the discovery, describes a newly identified red dwarf<\/a> star, AWI0005x3s, and its warm circumstellar disk, the kind associated with young planetary systems. Most of the exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, that have been imaged to date dwell in disks similar to the one around AWI0005x3s.<\/p>\n

The disk and its star are located in what is dubbed the Carina association \u2013 a large, loose grouping of similar stars in the Carina Nebula<\/a> approximately 212 light years from our sun. Its relative proximity to Earth will make it easier to conduct follow-on studies.<\/p>\n

“Most disks of this kind fade away in less than 30 million years,” said Steven Silverberg, a graduate student at Oklahoma University and lead author of the paper. “This particular red dwarf is a candidate member of the Carina association, which would make it around 45 million years old. It’s the oldest red dwarf system with a disk we’ve seen in one of these associations.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the launch of NASA\u2019s Disk Detective<\/a> website in January 2014, approximately 30,000 citizen scientists have performed roughly two million classifications of stellar objects, including those that led to this discovery. Through Disk Detective, citizen scientists study data from NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer<\/a> mission (WISE), the agency\u2019s Two-Micron All Sky Survey project, and other stellar surveys.<\/p>\n

“Without the help of the citizen scientists examining these objects and finding the good ones, we might never have spotted this object,” said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Fight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who leads Disk Detective. “The WISE mission alone found 747 million objects, of which we expect a few thousand to be circumstellar disks.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The eight citizen scientist co-authors, members of an advanced user group, volunteered to help by researching disk candidates. Their data led to the discovery of this new disk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve loved astronomy since childhood and wanted to be part of the space program, as did every boy my age,\u201d adds Milton Bosch, a citizen scientist co-author from California. \u201cI feel very fortunate to be part of such a great group of dedicated people, and am thrilled to partake in this adventure of discovery and be a co-author on this paper.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Disk Detective is a collaboration between NASA, Zooniverse<\/a>, the University of Oklahoma, University of C\u00f3rdoba in Argentina, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Space Telescope Science Institute, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Carnegie Institution of Washington, University of Hawaii and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.<\/p>\n

To learn more about opportunities for the public to participate in NASA science and technology projects, visit:\u00a0www.nasa.gov\/solve<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another example\u00a0of citizen scientists contributing to a published scientific finding: Citizen Scientists Discover Potential New Exoplanet Hunting Ground Via a NASA-led citizen science project, eight people with no formal training in astrophysics helped discover what could be a fruitful new place to search for planets outside our solar system \u2013 a large disk of gas … Continue reading Citizen scientists find debris disk around red dwarf where planets can form<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,46,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-exoplanets","category-space-participation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-3tY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8112,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=8112","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":0},"title":"Zooniverse news: Sunspotters wanted, an oddball in the Radio Galaxy Zoo, and more","author":"TopSpacer","date":"June 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A scan of\u00a0\u00a0news and blog posts at Zooniverse citizen science projects: The Sunspotter\u00a0project was introduced quietly earlier in the year and the first round of classifications \u00a0has\u00a0been declared a success and a new one is underway: \u00a0Become a Sunspotter and play Solar \u2018Hot-or-Not\u2019 -\u00a0Zooniverse \u2026And We\u2019re Back!! Sunspotter Round 2\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Solar Science"","block_context":{"text":"Solar Science","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=31"},"img":{"alt_text":"SunspotComplexity","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/SunspotComplexity.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6321,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6321","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":1},"title":"Disk Detective: Search for star systems with planet-forming debris","author":"TopSpacer","date":"February 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Zooniverse\u00a0\u00a0has opened a new citizen science program called\u00a0Disk Detective: Scientists are combing our galaxy looking for stars that could be harbouring planet-forming disks. They need your help to explain this puzzling part of stellar evolution! What is WISE looking for? WISE is a NASA mission surveying the whole sky in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9603,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=9603","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":2},"title":"Volunteer ‘Disk Detectives’ classify over a million possible planetary habitats","author":"TopSpacer","date":"January 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A citizen-science project with NASA's\u00a0WISE\u00a0(Wide-field Infrared Survey) mission has been a quite successful: Volunteer 'Disk Detectives' Top 1 Million Classifications of Possible Planetary Habitats A NASA-sponsored website designed to crowdsource analysis of data from the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has reached an impressive milestone. In less than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"hs-2014-44-e-xlarge_web[1]","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/hs-2014-44-e-xlarge_web1-890x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17881,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=17881","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":3},"title":"Citizen Scientist in NASA project spots ancient white dwarf star with puzzling rings","author":"TopSpacer","date":"February 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"As often reported here, citizen scientists, especially in astronomy, continue to make significant contributions to the sciences. Here is a new article from NASA detailing one such case: Citizen Scientist Finds Ancient White Dwarf Star With Puzzling Rings A volunteer working with the NASA-led Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/white_dwarf_disk_final1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4393,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=4393","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":4},"title":"Video: Imaging habitable exoplanets + PANOPTES citizen science exoplanet search","author":"TopSpacer","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a very interesting SETI Institute seminar by Olivier Guyon about the possibilities of directly imaging planets in the habitable zones of stars by using coronagraph techniques on telescopes to suppress the glare of the star. Could work with a Hubble size telescope in orbit or with the new giant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/Da2KLcbUIV8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2256,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=2256","url_meta":{"origin":13390,"position":5},"title":"Planet Hunter citizen scientists confirmed exoplanet in star’s habitable zone","author":"TopSpacer","date":"May 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year participants in the\u00a0Planet Hunters citizen science project confirmed with 99.9 percent confidence the discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet called PH2b orbiting within the \u201chabitable zone\u201d of its star, the range where earth-like planets could have liquid water and possibly sustain life. 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