NASA is looking for volunteers, regardless of their academic level, to identify eclipsing binary stars

Citizen science initiatives are becoming increasingly popular and achieving increasingly important results. Citizen science refers to research that relies on the free collaboration of volunteers, without requiring technical training, to help scientists with simple but time-consuming tasks. Having this workforce can be the key to carrying out projects that would otherwise be unfeasible for a team of several scientists.

NASA has recently launched a new citizen science project, called Eclipsing Binary Patrol, which aims to identify eclipsing binary stars.

Eclipsing binary stars are special pairs of stars that, from our viewing perspective on Earth, pass in front of each other as they orbit each other. In other words, they are stars that take turns blocking each other’s light. In the Eclipsing Binary Patrol project, anyone who wants to will have the chance to help discover these unusual star pairs.

In Eclipsing Binary Patrol, you’ll work with real data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. TESS collects a lot of information. But computers sometimes have a hard time telling when the data shows something unimportant, like background noise or objects that aren’t stars. With your help, NASA scientists can identify the right targets and dig deeper into the behavior of double star systems.

“I have never worked as a professional astronomer, but being part of the Eclipsing Binary Patrol project allows me to work with real data and contribute to real discoveries,” says Aline Fornear, a volunteer from Brazil. “I have no words to describe the excitement I feel knowing that my efforts are helping to better understand such distant star systems.”

Artist’s impression of a sector of a solar system with eclipsing binary stars. (Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

By participating in the Eclipsing Binary Patrol project, your work will help determine when a particular astronomical object is actually an eclipsing binary, verify its orbital period, and confirm that the object is the true source of the detected eclipses. Your assistance is vital in distinguishing between a genuine discovery and a false signal.

If you wish to collaborate on the project, you can visit the project page on the citizen science platform Zooniverse, in this link. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)