Astronomy enthusiasts will be able to help advance science. Telescope maker Unistellar and the nonprofit SETI Science Institute have launched a campaign to identify exoplanets similar to Jupiter and offer everyone to come and help them, reports the media Space Monday, October 3, 2022.
All “citizen” astronomers with a telescope can participate. The idea is to give NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) a boost. This satellite identifies celestial objects via the transit method: if the light coming from a star suddenly dims, it means that a foreign body has just passed in front of it.
An experience already made in the past
It should then be checked whether it is a exoplanet or another element, such as another low mass star for example. For this, long observations and the analysis of an impressive amount of data are necessary. This is extensive work but it is bearing fruit: nearly 4,000 exoplanets have already been identified using this method, notes Slate .
A call had already been made to amateur astronomers to identify the exoplanets of the TOI 1812 system. The experiment is therefore repeated, Unistellar and the SETI institute being convinced by the success encountered in the past. “Citizen astronomers around the world are uniting to help humanity discover new planets trillions of miles awaysummarized the director of space sciences of Unistellar. It’s just amazing. »