42 Alien Planets Found by Amateur Astronomers
The Planet Hunters project has turned out to be very effective for finding new planets. Planet Hunters is a symbiotic project, pairing the discovery power of the people with follow-up by a team of astronomers,” said Debra Fischer, a professor of astronomy at Yale.
Recently, 42 alien planets found by a group of amateurs.
Forty volunteers with the crowd-sourcing Planet Hunters project discovered the new planet candidates, which include 15 potentially habitable worlds and PH2 b, a Jupiter-size planet that the team confirmed to be in the habitable zone of its parent star.
“These are planet candidates that slipped through the net, being missed by professional astronomers and rescued by volunteers in front of their web browsers,” said the University of Oxford’s Chris Lintott, who helms the Zooniverse, in a statement. “It’s remarkable to think that absolutely anyone can discover a planet.”
To learn how to participate in the Planet Hunters project, visit: http://www.planethunters.org/