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Science AMA Series: We are Disk Detective, a NASA citizen science project devoted to finding new planetary systems with YOUR help. AUA!
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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!