TDS Science
As a goal-oriented person, I wanted to find something I could do with astronomy that would give me goals and objectives to work on, rather than just randomly pointing my telescope towards the sky. I typed "citizen science" into Google and found NASA's Citizen Science page. There are lots of projects listed, and I wanted to find one that satisfied my inner Star Trek fan and would allow me to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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​Exoplanet Watch was the project I settled on because it would give me clear objectives and offered a community of other variable star observers to help guide me through the process. It's taking a lot of trial and error and I'm still learning, but I feel like I'm actually contributing to something meaningful.​
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What is an exoplanet?
An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system. Most exoplanets orbit other stars. Exoplanets can pass in front of, or "transit," the stars they orbit. Most of the exoplanets discovered so far are in a relatively small region of our galaxy, the Milky Way. ("Small" meaning within thousands of light-years of our solar system; one light-year equals 5.88 trillion miles, or 9.46 trillion kilometers.) That is as far as current telescopes have been able to probe. Although exoplanets are far – even the closest known exoplanet to Earth, Proxima Centauri b, is still about 4 light-years away – scientists have discovered creative ways to spot these seemingly tiny objects.
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Why do we observe exoplanets?
The ultimate goal of NASA's Exoplanet Program is to find unmistakable signs of current life.
Exoplanets’ own skies could hold such signs, waiting to be revealed by detailed analysis of the atmospheres of planets well beyond our solar system.
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How do we observe exoplanets?
There are five methods scientists commonly use to discover exoplanets.
The two main techniques are the transit and radial velocity methods.
When a planet passes directly between an observer and the star it orbits, it blocks some of that starlight. For a brief period of time, that star’s light actually gets dimmer. It's a tiny change, but it's enough to clue astronomers in to the presence of an exoplanet around a distant star. This is known as the transit method.
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How can you help?
Anyone can participate! The Watchers community teaches you everything you need to know step by step. No telescope? No problem! They even have robotic telescopes you can use to request data to analyze even on a mobile device. You'll be able to upload your results into the NASA pipeline to help scientists learn more about that exoplanet system. A unique identifier makes sure you get credit for your observations whenever scientists use your data. As of March 2024, Exoplanet Watchers have studied over 400 different exoplanets, and created over 6,000 light curves.
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Fore more information, check out NASA's Exoplanet Watch site, and check out their Slack channel. You can also check out the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO); their YouTube channel has a great collection of videos on how to get started in observing variable stars.