Members of the public can help scientists learn how planets form by sifting through data from NASA's WISE mission, managed by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Planets form from gas and dustparticles swirling around baby stars in enormous spinning disks. But because thisprocess takes millions of years, scientists can only learn about these disks byfinding and studying a lot of different examples.

Through a project called Disk Detective, you can help. Anyone, regardless of background or prior knowledge,can assist scientists in figuring out the mysteries of planet formation. Disk Detectiveis an example of citizen science, a collaboration between professionalscientists and members of the public.

"We're trying to understandhow long it takes for planets to form," said astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, theDisk Detective project lead at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Maryland, and the Citizen Science Officer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate."Tracing the evolution of these disks is the main way that we know how longplanet formation takes."

Disk Detective has just relaunchedwith a new website and a new dataset of about 150,000 stars. This new version ofthe project focuses on M dwarfs, which represent the most common type of star inthe Milky Way galaxy. It also concentrates on brown dwarfs, which are balls of gasthat don't burn hydrogen the way stars do and often more closely resemble giantplanets like Jupiter.

After reading the instructions,participants can start identifying disks right away in Disk Detective. The interfacepresents a series of real astronomical images and asks visitors questions that willhelp determine more definitively if a disk is present. The images come from NASA'sWide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which now operates as NEOWISE, as well as theground-based Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) inHawaii and the NASA-funded Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), which operated from1997 to 2001.

"We have multiple citizenscientists look at each object, give their own independent opinion, and trust thewisdom of the crowd to decide what things are probably galaxies and what thingsare probably stars with disks around them," said Disk Detective's director,Steven Silverberg, a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology'sKavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Advanced users learn more aboutthe objects they're studying using professional data archives. Those who contributesubstantial insight receive credit on scientific papers describing the discoveriesmade through Disk Detective's efforts. Professional scientists then follow up oncitizen scientists' input using more sophisticated tools and new observations. Fifteencitizen scientists have already become named co-authors on peer-reviewed scientificpapers through Disk Detective.

One enthusiastic Disk Detective"superuser" is Hugo Durantini Luca, a computer technician in Crdoba,Argentina. He began classifying disks with the project in 2014 and since then hastaken on additional responsibilities: writing tutorials, moderating discussions,and even helping use telescopes in South America to follow up on interesting targets.While he became involved because of his interest in detecting planetary systemsand analyzing images, he says he highly values "the way you are able to workwith the science team directly." He is in frequent communication with Kuchnerand other professional astronomers, and he participates in a weekly video call forsuperusers.

"I think we are going tohave an interesting new season," Durantini Luca said. "The new way weare processing the data will allow us to analyze the image[s] with better detail."

Citizen scientists at Disk Detectivemade an important discovery in 2016: a new class of disks, called Peter Pan disks. Most disks around young, low-massstars should lose their gas, due to planet formation and natural dissipation intospace, after 5 million years. Yet Disk Detective citizen scientists discovered adisk with plenty of gas orbiting a star that is roughly 45 million years old.

Since then, seven similar mysteriouslyyoung-looking disks have been found, each at least 20 million years old. Scientistsare still puzzling out why planet formation goes on for so long in these disks.They predict that citizen scientists may find as many as 15 new Peter Pan disksthrough the newly revamped Disk Detective.

"To figure out how disksevolve, we need a big sample of different kinds of disks of different ages,"Kuchner said.

More recently, Disk Detective'sefforts resulted in a discovery announced on June 2 at the American AstronomicalSociety's (AAS) 236th meeting, which was held virtually. With the help of citizenscientists, astronomers identified the closest young brown dwarf disk yet, one thatmay have the capability to form planets. This 3.7-million-year-old brown dwarf,called W1200-7845, is about 333 light-years away. A light-year is the distance lighttravels in one year; the closest star beyond the Sun is over 4 light-years away.

"There are not many examplesof young brown dwarfs so close to the Sun, so W1200-7845 is an exciting discovery,"said Maria Schutte, a predoctoral graduate student at the University of Oklahoma,who led the study and presented the findings at the AAS meeting. Durantini Lucaand other citizen scientists were included as coauthors.

Since the last Disk Detectivedata release, ESA's (European Space Agency's) Gaia satellite has delivered an unprecedentedbounty of information about the locations, movements, and types of stars in theMilky Way. The Disk Detective science team used the new data from Gaia to identifyM dwarfs of interest to the project. A second improvement to the project is thatthe new images from the surveys listed above have higher resolution than the previousbatch of data, making more background objects visible.

"NASA needs your help,"Kuchner said. "Come discover these disks with us!"

About Disk Detective

Disk Detective is a NASA-fundedcitizen science project that is part of the NASA-sponsored Zooniverse citizen scienceplatform.

Check out the revamped Disk Detectiveproject at:

https://diskdetective.org

Learn more about NASA CitizenScience at:

https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience

AboutWISE and NEOWISE

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratoryin Southern California managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directoratefrom 2009 to 2011. Edward Wright at the University of California, Los Angeles wasthe principal investigator. The mission was selected competitively under NASA'sExplorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Maryland. In late 2013, the spacecraft was reactivated and renamed NEOWISE.

For more informationabout NEOWISE, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/neowise

http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/

For more informationabout WISE, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise/

News Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau NASA Headquarters 202-923-0167 elandau@nasa.gov

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'Disk Detective' Needs Your Help Finding Disks Where Planets Form - Jet Propulsion Laboratory