Citizen scientists are invited to help NASA explore for exoplanets through the newly launched Planet Patrol initiative. This citizen science platform allows participants to collaborate with professional astronomers as they sort through images collected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

“Automated methods of processing TESS data sometimes fail to catch imposters that look like exoplanets,” said project leader Veselin Kostov, a NASA research scientist. “The human eye is extremely good at spotting such imposters, and we need citizen scientists to help us distinguish between the look-alikes and genuine planets.”Citizen scientists are invited to help NASA explore for exoplanets by analyzing images from TESS. Source: NASA

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TESS has been in Earth's orbit since April 2018, searching for exoplanets by use of the transit method — tracking changes in stellar brightness caused by planets crossing in front of a host star. Researchers use algorithms to analyze the data set and weed out false positives but as computers are not foolproof, help from volunteers is now being enlisted to determine which TESS snapshots include signals from potential planets and which ones show planet impersonators.

Planet Patrol, a partnership involving NASA, the SETI Institute, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the citizen-science collaborative platform Zooniverse, asks volunteers questions about TESS images of potential exoplanets. Their answers will help mission team members to narrow down candidates for follow-up vetting.