Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




EXO WORLDS
NASA-Sponsored 'Disk Detective' Lets Public Search for New Planetary Nurseries
by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 31, 2014


Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org. Image courtesy NASA/ESA/C. Burrows (STScI).

NASA is inviting the public to help astronomers discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission through a new website, DiskDetective.org.

Disk Detective is NASA's largest crowdsourcing project whose primary goal is to produce publishable scientific results. It exemplifies a new commitment to crowdsourcing and open data by the United States government.

"Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope," said James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate.

WISE was designed to survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. From a perch in Earth orbit, the spacecraft completed two scans of the entire sky between 2010 and 2011. It took detailed measurements on more than 745 million objects, representing the most comprehensive survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available.

Astronomers have used computers to search this haystack of data for planet-forming environments and narrowed the field to about a half-million sources that shine brightly in the infrared, indicating they may be "needles": dust-rich disks that are absorbing their star's light and reradiating it as heat.

"Planets form and grow within disks of gas, dust and icy grains that surround young stars, but many details about the process still elude us," said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We need more examples of planet-forming habitats to better understand how planets grow and mature."

But galaxies, interstellar dust clouds, and asteroids also glow in the infrared, which stymies automated efforts to identify planetary habitats. There may be thousands of nascent solar systems in the WISE data, but the only way to know for sure is to inspect each source by eye, which poses a monumental challenge.

Public participation in scientific research is a type of crowdsourcing known as citizen science. It allows the public to make critical contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by collecting, analyzing and sharing a wide range of data. NASA uses citizen science to engage the public in problem-solving.

Kuchner recognized the spotting of planetary nurseries as a perfect opportunity for crowdsourcing. He arranged for NASA to team up with the Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage citizen science projects on the Internet. The result of their combined effort is Disk Detective.

Disk Detective incorporates images from WISE and other sky surveys in brief animations the website calls flip books. Volunteers view a flip book and classify the object based on simple criteria, such as whether the image is round or includes multiple objects. By collecting this information, astronomers will be able to assess which sources should be explored in greater detail, for example, to search for planets outside our solar system.

"Disk Detective's simple and engaging interface allows volunteers from all over the world to participate in cutting-edge astronomy research that wouldn't even be possible without their efforts," said Laura Whyte, director of citizen science at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Ill., a founding partner of the Zooniverse collaboration.

The project aims to find two types of developing planetary environments. The first, known as a young stellar object disk, typically is less than 5 million years old, contains large quantities of gas, and often is found in or near young star clusters. For comparison, our own solar system is 4.6 billion years old. The second planetary environment, known as a debris disk, tends to be older than 5 million years, possesses little or no gas, and contains belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. Vega and Fomalhaut, two of the brightest stars in the sky, host debris disks.

WISE was shut down in 2011 after its primary mission was completed. But in September 2013, it was reactivated, renamed Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), and given a new mission, which is to assist NASA's efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). NEOWISE also can assist in characterizing previously detected asteroids that could be considered potential targets for future exploration missions.

.


Related Links
Disk Detective
WISE
Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science
Life Beyond Earth






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








EXO WORLDS
Astronomers create first map of weather on nearby brown dwarf star
Garching, Germany (UPI) Jan 29, 2013
Astronomers say they've used a telescope in Chile to create the first-ever map of the weather on the surface of the nearest brown dwarf star to Earth. An international team using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has created a chart of the dark and light features on Luhman 16B, one of two recently discovered brown dwarfs forming a pair only 6 light-years from the ... read more


EXO WORLDS
NASA's LRO Snaps a Picture of NASA's LADEE Spacecraft

Sole camera from NASA moon missions to be auctioned

New results on the geologic characteristics of the Chang'e-3 exploration region

China's moon rover experiences abnormality

EXO WORLDS
Curiosity Mars Rover Checking Possible Smoother Route

Work on Mystery Rock Continues As Rover Marks 10

NASA Mars Rover's View of Possible Westward Route

NASA Mars project: radiation risk of highest concern

EXO WORLDS
Russian Space Farmers Harvest Wheat, Peas and Greens

Future interplanetary spacecraft to be equipped with 'plantations'

FAA Grants Waypoint 2 Space Safety Approval Of Training Programs

British astronaut says space travel vital to survival of human race

EXO WORLDS
Waiting for Yutu

Moon plays trick on Jade Rabbit

'Goodnight, humans': Says Yutu As The Sun Sets

Extra Time for Tiangong

EXO WORLDS
NASA Extends Reliance on Russian Spacecraft Until 2018

British firm says its space station cameras to provide Web images

Russia plans three spacewalks from ISS in 2014 - Energia

Space Station 2024 Extension Expands Economic and Research Horizons

EXO WORLDS
Both payloads for Arianespace's next Ariane 5 flight are mated to the launcher

45th Space Wing Supports NASA Launch

Athena-Fidus receives its "kick" for Arianespace's upcoming Ariane 5 launch

ILS Proton To Launch Yamal 601

EXO WORLDS
NASA-Sponsored 'Disk Detective' Lets Public Search for New Planetary Nurseries

First Weather Map of Brown Dwarf

Astronomers create first map of weather on nearby brown dwarf star

ALMA Discovers a Formation Site of a Giant Planetary System

EXO WORLDS
Microwires as mobile phone sensors

New NASA Laser Technology Reveals How Ice Measures Up

Highly Efficient Broadband Terahertz Radiation from Metamaterials

Chameleon of the sea reveals its secrets




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement