Science AMA Series: We are Disk Detective, a NASA citizen science
project devoted to finding new planetary systems with YOUR help. AUA!
Abstract
Disk Detective is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center and the Zooniverse Project, searching for previously undiscovered
circumstellar disks and planetary systems with your help! We use citizen
science to help visually inspect data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (WISE), as well as other full-sky surveys. With over
30,000 scientists (and counting) helping to classify thousands of
targets, we’ve discovered over 50 new disk candidates, indicators of 50
new potential planetary systems to investigate, with more to come. In
addition to the citizen science analysis on our Web site, we have an
extensive follow-up observation program with collaborators around the
world, including observing runs and data analysis that our citizen
scientists take part in! We have several members of the team here to
answer your questions: Marc Kuchner: research astrophysicist at NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, Disk Detective science team leader Alissa
Bans: research post-doc at Adler Planetarium John Debes: ESA/AURA
astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute Steven Silverberg:
graduate student at University of Oklahoma and NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center John Wisniewski: assistant professor of astronomy at University
of Oklahoma Hugo Durantini Luca: Disk Detective “super-user” We’ll be
back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC), Ask us anything! And if you want
to get involved, join us at http://www.diskdetective.org/. EDIT: Proof!
EDIT #2: Hi, all! Steven here, with the rest of the team live via
Internet, ready to answer your questions. Let’s get started! EDIT #3
(3:30PM EDT): We went a bit over our time here; looks like we need to
sign off. We’ll be answering any other questions that may come up over
the next couple of days. In the meantime, come classify subjects on the
Web site! While you’re there, be sure to check out Talk, our built-in
social media site for the project. And, if you happen to have made 300
classifications, email us at
[email protected] to join our
Advanced User Group. Thanks for all the great questions!