7 May 2022 | New Scientist | 51The back pages
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How to date in
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week in weird p56Tom Gauld for
New Scientist
A cartoonist’s take
on the world p55Almost the last word
Is it possible to fly
a spaceship through
a gas giant? p54Puzzles
Try our crossword,
quick quiz and
logic puzzle p53Twisteddoodles
for New Scientist
Picturing the lighter
side of life p56Layal Liverpool is a science
journalist based in Berlin.
She believes everyone can
be a scientist, including you.
@layallivs
NASA
’S^ GODDA
RDSPAC
E^ FLIGHT
CENTERThese articles are
posted each week at
newscientist.com/makerWhat you need
Access to Planet Hunters
TESS via zooniverse.org
THIS month I am escaping from
Earth and joining astronomers
in their search for undiscovered
worlds. You can too, by
participating in the Planet
Hunters TESS project online.
You will be asked to flick
through observations from NASA’s
Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS) and look out for
signs of worlds beyond our solar
system. Each time one of these
exoplanets passes in front of its
parent star – a process known as
transiting – it blocks out a small
amount of the star’s light.
The dimming that occurs
during a planet’s transit can be
detected by the satellite, appearing
as a dip in a graph of the star’s light
output. By drawing boxes around
these dips on the graphs, you can
help astronomers comb through
the vast amounts of data
generated by the satellite each
month and potentially aid in
the discovery of new planets.
Depending on how far a planet
is from its star and the number of
planets in a star system, you might
notice one or multiple transits in
the star’s light graph. Astronomers
can also use the data to work out
information about a planet, such
as its mass and density.
Citizen scientists participating
in the project recently helped
identify two exoplanets orbiting a
type of star called a yellow dwarf.
“We think both of the planets have
really extended atmospheres,”
says Nora Eisner at the University
of Oxford, who leads Planet
Hunters TESS. This means the
planets probably aren’t veryComb through observations from NASA’s TESS mission to help
astronomers discover new planets, says Layal LiverpoolCitizen science
Brave new worlds
dense, as their atmospheres are
spread out in space.
Eisner and her team published
the findings in the journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, with the
citizen scientists who contributed
listed as co-authors. “People get
very excited when I send them
an email saying, ‘you helped find
a planet’,” says Eisner.
I am still waiting (hoping) to
get that email, but the 33,800
volunteers who have taken part
since the project launched in
2018 have already contributed
to the identification of around
140 planet candidates.
And, although Eisner and
her colleagues also use artificial
intelligence to comb through the
data, human observations offer
something that algorithms can’t.“The exciting thing about
our candidates compared to the
ones the algorithm finds is that
ours tend to be longer period,
[meaning] it takes them longer
to go around their star once,” says
Eisner. These planets are less likely
to be noticed by the algorithm,
since their longer orbital periods
mean they transit less frequently.
They are of particular interest to
astronomers, as they are more
likely to be in the habitable zone
where liquid water could exist.
Eisner has yet to find any
habitable zone planets, but
perhaps you can help her. “Keep
an eye out for things that look
Citizen science appears strange,” she recommends. ❚
every four weeks
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Science of cooking