Planet Hunters

Exoplanets are planets orbiting other stars than our own. One of the methods to detect them is to observe the change in luminosity when a planet passes in front of a star. It masks the star and so the luminosity observed by the telescope decreases.

Detecting drops in the luminosity of a star linked to the transit of a planet is not an easy thing to do for a computer. That's why the scientists ask for the help of human volunteer to observe the luminosity curves of stars observed by the Kepler space telescope.

The site is very easy to use. There is a short tutorial. When you have a transit it looks like this:



Anyone can contribute. It doesn't take long per star. Here is the website:


http://www.planethunters.org/

 

hi, i am an amateur astronomer, thanks for the info. kevin