Backyard Worlds volunteers double known brown dwarf population
Updated
Updated · Science@NASA · May 5
Backyard Worlds volunteers double known brown dwarf population
8 articles · Updated · Science@NASA · May 5
A paper in the Astronomical Journal says roughly 200,000 participants found more than 3,000 objects in a decade, using NASA WISE and NEOWISE-R images analysed on Zooniverse.
The expanded catalogue has already uncovered extreme T subdwarfs, ultra-cool objects and one brown dwarf that appears to have aurorae, giving astronomers a much larger sample to study.
Led by Adam Schneider of the US Naval Observatory, the 75-author study included 61 volunteers and supports efforts to map the Solar neighbourhood and mass distribution in the Milky Way.
Now that citizen scientists have found 3,000 new brown dwarfs, what mysteries will the James Webb Space Telescope unveil about their atmospheres?
With thousands of new brown dwarfs found, are we any closer to solving why they are so rare in close orbits around stars?
As AI improves, will human volunteers in projects like Backyard Worlds become obsolete, or do they offer a unique skill AI cannot replicate?