New Exoplanets Just Dropped! And Citizen Scientists Helped Find Them

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. We've been finding potential exoplanets more often since the Kepler and TESS spacecraft were launched. But confirming these planets takes time, and telescope time is limited. To speed up the process, amateur astronomers are using their own telescopes. One program, called UNITE (Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets), brings together a global group of volunteer and professional astronomers. They use Unistellar telescopes to gather data when exoplanets pass in front of their stars, blocking some of the light. Scientists from the SETI Institute and Unistellar analyze this data. Recently, they confirmed two exoplanets—a hot Jupiter and a warm sub-Saturn.

Dr. Lauren Sgro, UNITE’s Exoplanets Lead, talks with communications specialist Beth Johnson about exoplanets, community science, and how science is evolving.

#exoplanets #science #space #citizenscience #communityscience #unistellar


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[zapfanzapfan]

Fantastic project showing the usefulness of even relatively small telescopes when they work together across the world. Is the Unistellar-network used for Kuiper object occultations too? Good method for constraining the size of objects and find out if they have atmospheres or rings.

[zapfanzapfan]

Hey, finding eclipsing binaries can be cool too! 🙂

[robertlautenslager]

There are millions of "amateur" astronomers with better instrumentation than the Unistellar (which is just one small fraction of the revolutions that has taken place in amateur astronomy in the past decade) why not reach out to the broader community?