Citizen Science - Disk Detective

We discuss cool science research regularly here, but today I want to focus on doing science as a lay person or "citizen science."

Interested in space and finding new planetary systems? Then, check out DiskDective.org where you can be part of a NASA and Zooinverse crowdsourcing project whose main goal is to publish scientific results from data collected from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

How?

Well, planets are created from immense clouds of dust, gas, and rock that swirl about a common center of gravity to form "debris disks" around a star. The rotating debris, from an angstrom up to a centimeter in size, come together in the disk to form planets.

Identifying these disks and possible planets takes computer and people power. You can help search for likely debris disks at the Disk Dectective website. The tutorial is simple and explains everything from how to know what you are looking at to how to compare images from different space scans. It's more fun than a video game and you are doing real science. Give it a try and let me know how you do. 

Find more citizen science projects on a variety of topics listed here, here, and here. Definitely something for everyone. Go science!

Citizen Science

Nearly everyone finds time to get outdoors in the summer. Families, friends, bicyclists, hikers, divers, photographers and more are doing activities set in nature. So what better time for scientists to recruit extra eyes, ears, and hands for reporting on mother nature's residents and mysteries. 

Discover magazine and SciStarter's new online Citizen Science Salon allows everyone to become amateur scientists and collaborate on important research projects.

Interested in marine research? MyOSD-Ocean Sampling Day is scheduled for June 21st. Seahorse lovers can help improve understanding of those ocean friends at iSeahorse. Want to help gather information about horseshoe crab hitchhikers and phytoplankton? Get started here (horseshoe crabs) and here (phytoplankton). You can also help analyze deep-sea videos (15 seconds at a time) with Digital Fishers. 

How about sorting out whale sounds? Each family of Killer Whales has its own dialect. Closely-related families share calls. Get the details at WhaleFM.

More interested in outer than inner space? The Moon Zoo project helps identify and map the moon using images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. 

Want to look further? The Kepler spacecraft stares at stars in the Cygnus constellation and records their brightness every thirty minutes to search for transiting planets. Help out at Planet Hunters.

Didn't see your favorite science project? The Citizen Science Alliance keeps a list of current projects. An internet search for citizen science will also turn up more projects at different universities and agencies. Go science!

More Earth-like Planets Found

Recently, GJ667C, a low-luminosity “M-dwarf” star about 1/3 the mass of our Sun and part of a triple-sun system around 22 light-years from Earth (one light-year = ~5.9 trillion miles) was part of an ongoing international star study.

Scientists had previously found evidence of the existence of two "super Earths" (less than ten times larger than Earth) and the possibility of a third, when they discovered a total of 6-7 worlds circling the star at a distance that would allow life.

U.S. lead author, University of Washington astronomer Rory Barnes, describes emerging evidence of more M-dwarf stars that have more low-mass planets in habitable zones along with the rest of an international team. 

“These planets are good candidates to have a solid surface and maybe an atmosphere like the Earth’s, not something like Jupiter,” Barnes said.

Using doppler spectroscopy, astronomers are able to see farther and clearer. Who knows how many other potentially habitable planets are circling suns in our galactic neighborhood? I can wait to find out!

Citizen Science

Ever wonder if you have the right stuff to become a scientist? You may be able to find out with these cool citizen science projects. For space lovers, SETI@home harnesses the computing power of millions participants to search for extraterrestrial life. Galaxy Zoo: Hubble enlists volunteer astronomers as classifiers of heavenly objects.

For budding naturalists, The Great Sunflower Project is for you. Citizen scientists take 15-minute counts of the number and types of bees visiting sunflowers and other plants in yards, gardens, schoolyards, and parks. The information submitted helps shed light on the health and numbers of ailing honey bee populations.

Are you a puzzle solver? Try Foldit. You may end up helping research teams at the University of Washington and Harvard University in developing pathogen capture proteins to seek out and remove circulating invaders such as Salmonella and Staphylococcus.

For even more space, climate, nature, and humanities citizen science projects check out Zooniverse. I'm headed there now!