{"id":19070,"date":"2017-02-15T21:23:45","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T13:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/looking-for-planet-9-and-other-far-out-objects-finally-nasa-has-an-app-for-that\/"},"modified":"2017-02-15T21:23:45","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T13:23:45","slug":"looking-for-planet-9-and-other-far-out-objects-finally-nasa-has-an-app-for-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/looking-for-planet-9-and-other-far-out-objects-finally-nasa-has-an-app-for-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Planet 9 and other far-out objects? Finally, NASA has an app for that"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_270754\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-270754\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-270754\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/160829-planet-x-630x561.jpg\" alt=\"Planet X \/ Planet Nine\" width=\"630\" height=\"561\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/160829-planet-x-630x561.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/160829-planet-x.jpg 752w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-270754\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows Planet X, a.k.a.&nbsp;Planet Nine. (Carnegie Institution \/ Robin Dienel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Citizen scientists can join an online hunt for icy worlds, brown dwarfs and other yet-to-be-discovered objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, using a technique that\u2019s not all that different from the method that led to Pluto\u2019s discovery 87 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBackyard Worlds: Planet 9\u201d could even lead to the discovery of a super-Earth that may (or may not) be hidden on the solar system\u2019s far frontier. The icy world known as Planet Nine or Planet X is only theoretical for now, but its existence would explain some of the puzzles surrounding the weird orbits of some far-out objects.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cBackyard Worlds\u201d website offers up millions of mini-movies that incorporate infrared imagery from NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The movies show the same patch of sky at different times, going back and forth like a flipbook.<\/p>\n<p>The project involves getting volunteers&nbsp;to watch the movies and look for telltale changes in the positions of points of light between one view and the other. Promising prospects are flagged for a follow-up look by professional astronomers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Join the Search for New Nearby Worlds\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dl3_hgUw6l8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Back in 1930, Lowell Observatory astronomer Clyde Tombaugh used a contraption known as a blink comparator to flip between photographic plates. The desk-sized device helped him spot a dot that turned out to be the dwarf planet Pluto.<\/p>\n<p>Today, computers conduct similar analyses of images much more quickly to identify dwarf planets, asteroids and the failed stars known as brown dwarfs. But sometimes the software gets tripped up by image artifacts, and sometimes human vision can pick up on the patterns that computers miss.<\/p>\n<p>The organizers of \u201cBackyard Worlds\u201d are counting on that human factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are just over four light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this vast territory is unexplored,\u201d the project\u2019s lead researcher, Marc Kuchner of NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a news release. \u201cBecause there\u2019s so little sunlight, even large objects in that region barely shine in visible light. But by looking in the infrared, WISE may have imaged objects we otherwise would have missed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Participants will&nbsp;win a share of the credit in any scientific discoveries that the project brings to light.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Backyard Worlds: Planet 9\u2019 has the potential to unlock once-in-a-century discoveries, and it\u2019s exciting to think they could be spotted first by a citizen scientist,\u201d Berkeley team member Aaron Meisner said in today\u2019s news release.<\/p>\n<p>The project is a collaboration involving&nbsp;NASA, the University of California at Berkeley, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Arizona State University, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and Zooniverse.<\/p>\n<p>Are far-out planets not your thing? There\u2019s more to choose from: Zooniverse has pioneered lots of other online citizen science projects over the years, including Galaxy Zoo, Ancient Lives&nbsp;and&nbsp;Fossil Finder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows Planet X, a.k.a.&nbsp;Planet Nine. (Carnegie Institution \/ Robin Dienel) Citizen scientists can join an online hunt for icy worlds, brown dwarfs and other yet-to-be-discovered objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, using a technique that\u2019s not all that different from the method that led to Pluto\u2019s discovery 87 years ago. \u201cBackyard Worlds: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1661,5452,5409,2840,5103],"class_list":["post-19070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astronomy","tag-brown-dwarfs","tag-citizen-science","tag-dwarf-planets","tag-planet-nine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}