Scientists need your help to analyze and interpret the large amounts of data that they collect. Through citizen science projects, anyone can take part in important research and help make new discoveries. Find astronomy projects and much more over at Zooniverse and Scistarter. New projects are announced regularly, so check back often!
WISE is a NASA mission that has surveyed the whole sky in infrared light, the same light night-vision goggles use. In this project, we use data from WISE to find debris disks: regions of gas, dust, and rock left over from planetary system formation, similar to the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt in our own Solar System. By finding more debris disks, we find stars that likely host planets. Learning more about these systems can tell us more about how planetary systems, including our Solar System, form and morph over time. Computers often confuse debris disks with other astronomical objects. We need your help to distinguish the stars with debris disks we’re looking for from background galaxies and nebulae.