In a project geared toward democratizing science and fostering educational enrichment, a gaggle of highschool students from the Galaxy Explorer program on the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California, made contributions to the sphere of exoplanet research. Researchers from the SETI Institute worked with the scholars to make use of backpack-sized digital smart telescopes provided by Unistellar; these young citizen scientists played a task in observing and confirming the character of a warm and dense sub-Saturn planet, often called TIC 139270665 b, orbiting a metal-rich G2 star.
“Through the use of latest technology available with digital smart telescopes, we are able to take large steps towards the democratization of recent astronomy and education because the outcomes of initiatives like this could contribute to each astronomical research and education with easy-to-use and increasingly accessible technology,” said Dr. Dan Peluso, SETI Institute Affiliate. “In such endeavors, participants are ‘learning by doing’ and the doing isn’t some meaningless task. As a substitute, the ‘doing’ is the astronomical data collection, which prior to now has been mostly left to skilled astronomers and their observatories, or with highly expert citizen astronomers with technical telescope setups. With TIC 139270665 b, our highschool students had a difficult but meaningful task — capture the second transit of an exoplanet with a poorly understood orbital period. These students were engaged, inspired, and were easily capable of setup and control the Unistellar telescopes with little or no training. Citizen science opportunities like this and latest technology with digital smart telescopes represent a fundamental shift and revolution for the way we are able to approach and perform astronomical research moving forward.”
The invention of TIC 139270665 b, the densest known warm sub-Saturn throughout the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) family, marks a milestone in exploring exoplanets. The initial clues of TIC 139270665 b’s existence was initially discovered by a citizen science group inspecting TESS photometric data, highlighting the role of public engagement in advancing scientific knowledge. Through further study by analyzing radial velocity data from the Lick Observatory, Peluso and Dr. Paul Dalba and their team were able to verify that TIC 139270665 b is indeed a planet and even has a sibling planet, TIC 139270665 c. The photometric data from the worldwide Unistellar Citizen Science Network, including the Galaxy Explorers, was not capable of definitively confirm a second transit with 100% confidence, nevertheless, their data was useful for the exoplanet study because it helped to rule out times when a transit was not happening and since it helped the scientists to learn precious lessons about the way to approach citizen scientist campaigns akin to this in the longer term.
The SETI Institute is the scientific partner of the Unistellar network, known for its global distribution of citizen astronomers. Citizen astronomers with Unistellar telescopes collected data that furthered the understanding of this exoplanet’s orbital period and characteristics as a part of the Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets (UNITE) program, a NASA citizen science project that is an element of the Unistellar Transiting Exoplanets campaign. This effort, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and NASA, contributes to the scientific community’s knowledge of planetary formation and evolution and is an academic initiative integrating young students into astrophysics data collection.
The highschool students’ involvement on this research underscores the potential of hands-on science education to motivate and have interaction young minds. Through their participation, students gained real-life skills and insights into the scientific process, from planning and conducting observations to analyzing data and contributing to a scientific publication, on which they’re all co-authors. This experience demonstrates the ability of mixing educational empowerment with research, allowing students to contribute to our understanding of the universe.
“This experience further propelled my fascination with the topic of astronomy, specifically in regard to exoplanetary science,” said Serina Jain, student at San Francisco University High School. “Working on this remark fueled my joy of engaging in astrophysics research and my plans to pursue this as a significant in college, in addition to my love of sharing astronomy with others. Since helping Dr. Peluso with this remark, I actually have been capable of bring much more passion and knowledge to my role as co-founder and leader of the San Francisco University High School Astronomy Club. This past summer, I went on to partake in a 7-week lab internship with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Mawet Astrophysics Lab, researching in exoplanet detection by the use of direct imaging, using coronagraphy and spectroscopy. My inspiration to hunt this involvement largely stemmed from my overwhelmingly positive experience working on this remark with Dr. Peluso.”
This initiative is a testament to the collaborative spirit of the scientific and academic communities. It showcases how integrating citizen science and education can result in discoveries and encourage the subsequent generation of scientists and explorers. The highschool students’ enthusiasm for this project is a beacon of hope for the longer term of scientific inquiry and education, proving that young minds can contribute to our understanding of the cosmos when given the chance.
As we proceed to explore the vast expanse of space, the contributions of those young citizen scientists remind us of the pivotal role of education and public engagement within the pursuit of information and discovery. The long run of astronomy and space exploration is vivid, with students like those within the Galaxy Explorer program leading the best way toward latest horizons and uncovering the mysteries of the universe.
This research was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (#10561) and NASA Citizen Science Seed Funding Program grant (Goddard-80NSSC22K113), with additional funding from the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship (AST-1903811) and the 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellowship, courtesy of the Heising-Simons Foundation.
