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Planet Hunters
Planet Hunters is a citizen science project to find exoplanets using human eyes. It does this by having users analyze data from the NASA Kepler space telescope and the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It was launched by a team led by Debra Fischer at Yale University, as part of the Zooniverse project.
The project was launched on December 16, 2010, after the first Data Release of Kepler data as the Planet Hunters Project. 300,000 volunteers participated in the project and the project team published 8 scientific papers. On December 14, 2014, the project was re-launched as Planet Hunters 2.0, with an improved website and considering that the volunteers will look at K2 data. As of November 2018 Planet Hunters had identified 50% of the known planets with an orbital period larger than two years.
In 2017 the project Exoplanet Explorers was launched. It was another planet hunting project at Zooniverse and discovered the system K2-138 and the exoplanet K2-288Bb. This project was launched during the television program Stargazing Live and the discovery of the K2-138 system was announced during the program.
On December 6, 2018, the project Planet Hunters TESS (PHT) was launched and is led by astronomer Nora Eisner. This project uses data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and is currently active (as of March 2023). This project discovered the Saturn-sized exoplanet TOI-813 b and many more.
Until March 2023 PHT discovered 284 exoplanet candidates (e.g. TIC 35021200.01), 15 confirmed exoplanets (e.g. TOI-5174 b) and countless eclipsing binaries. All discovered exoplanet candidates are uploaded to ExoFOP by Nora Eisner or sometimes by another project member (see TOI and CTOI list provided by ExoFOP).
All exoplanet candidates are manually checked by multiple project members (volunteers and moderators) and need to pass different tests before they are accepted by Nora Eisner and uploaded to ExoFOP. But it is possible that not all PHT planet candidates become real (confirmed) exoplanets. Some of them may be grazing eclipsing binaries.
On October 19, 2021, the project Planet Hunters: NGTS was launched. It uses a dataset from the Next Generation Transit Survey to find transiting planets. It is the first Planet Hunters project that uses data from a ground-based telescope. The project looks at candidates that were already automatically filtered, similar to the Exoplanet Explorers project. The project found four candidate planets so far. In the pre-print five candidates are presented. This includes a giant planet candidate around TIC-165227846, a mid-M dwarf. This candidate was independently detected by Byrant et al. 2023 and if confirmed could represent the lowest-mass star to host a close-in giant.
The Planet Hunters project exploits the fact that humans are better at recognising visual patterns than computers. The website displays an image of data collected by the NASA Kepler Space Mission and asks human users (referred to as "Citizen Scientists") to look at the data and see how the brightness of a star changes over time. This brightness data is represented as a graph and referred to as a star's light curve. Such curves are helpful in discovering extrasolar planets due to the brightness of a star decreasing when a planet passes in front of it, as seen from Earth. Periods of reduced brightness can thus provide evidence of planetary transits, but may also be caused by errors in recording, projection, or other phenomena.
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Planet Hunters AI simulator
(@Planet Hunters_simulator)
Planet Hunters
Planet Hunters is a citizen science project to find exoplanets using human eyes. It does this by having users analyze data from the NASA Kepler space telescope and the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It was launched by a team led by Debra Fischer at Yale University, as part of the Zooniverse project.
The project was launched on December 16, 2010, after the first Data Release of Kepler data as the Planet Hunters Project. 300,000 volunteers participated in the project and the project team published 8 scientific papers. On December 14, 2014, the project was re-launched as Planet Hunters 2.0, with an improved website and considering that the volunteers will look at K2 data. As of November 2018 Planet Hunters had identified 50% of the known planets with an orbital period larger than two years.
In 2017 the project Exoplanet Explorers was launched. It was another planet hunting project at Zooniverse and discovered the system K2-138 and the exoplanet K2-288Bb. This project was launched during the television program Stargazing Live and the discovery of the K2-138 system was announced during the program.
On December 6, 2018, the project Planet Hunters TESS (PHT) was launched and is led by astronomer Nora Eisner. This project uses data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and is currently active (as of March 2023). This project discovered the Saturn-sized exoplanet TOI-813 b and many more.
Until March 2023 PHT discovered 284 exoplanet candidates (e.g. TIC 35021200.01), 15 confirmed exoplanets (e.g. TOI-5174 b) and countless eclipsing binaries. All discovered exoplanet candidates are uploaded to ExoFOP by Nora Eisner or sometimes by another project member (see TOI and CTOI list provided by ExoFOP).
All exoplanet candidates are manually checked by multiple project members (volunteers and moderators) and need to pass different tests before they are accepted by Nora Eisner and uploaded to ExoFOP. But it is possible that not all PHT planet candidates become real (confirmed) exoplanets. Some of them may be grazing eclipsing binaries.
On October 19, 2021, the project Planet Hunters: NGTS was launched. It uses a dataset from the Next Generation Transit Survey to find transiting planets. It is the first Planet Hunters project that uses data from a ground-based telescope. The project looks at candidates that were already automatically filtered, similar to the Exoplanet Explorers project. The project found four candidate planets so far. In the pre-print five candidates are presented. This includes a giant planet candidate around TIC-165227846, a mid-M dwarf. This candidate was independently detected by Byrant et al. 2023 and if confirmed could represent the lowest-mass star to host a close-in giant.
The Planet Hunters project exploits the fact that humans are better at recognising visual patterns than computers. The website displays an image of data collected by the NASA Kepler Space Mission and asks human users (referred to as "Citizen Scientists") to look at the data and see how the brightness of a star changes over time. This brightness data is represented as a graph and referred to as a star's light curve. Such curves are helpful in discovering extrasolar planets due to the brightness of a star decreasing when a planet passes in front of it, as seen from Earth. Periods of reduced brightness can thus provide evidence of planetary transits, but may also be caused by errors in recording, projection, or other phenomena.