Be part of the Rubin Comet Catchers mission, and assist scientists uncover comets and different energetic objects in our photo voltaic system! The Rubin Comet Catchers mission invitations you to look at early pictures from the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, funded by the U.S. Nationwide Science Basis and the U.S. Division of Power’s Workplace of Science. You’ll search for faint tails and different indicators of cometary exercise that telescopes and software program alone may miss.
Discovering new comets might help reply key questions on how a lot water was delivered to Earth after it fashioned and the place that water originated.
“We predict LSST could produce a pattern of about 10,000 comets over its 10-year lifetime,” stated Zeljko Ivezic, Director of the Rubin Observatory Building Undertaking. “I want you a variety of enjoyable!”
Citizen scientists engaged on NASA’s Sungrazer Undertaking have already found hundreds of comets… which make up a lot of the comets which have ever been imaged! The comets discovered by the Sungrazer Undertaking are on particular orbits that take them close to the Solar. Comet Catchers, alternatively, will look in the other way – away from the Solar.
Rubin Comet Catchers was developed based mostly on Lively Asteroids, one other NASA-sponsored citizen science mission that asks volunteers to seek for asteroids with comet-like exercise in information from NOIRLab’s Darkish Power Digital camera. Together with your assist, the Lively Asteroids crew has revealed greater than 20 scientific papers and analysis notes – based mostly on information from a telescope that’s 4 meters in diameter. The info you’ll view within the Comets Catchers mission comes from a telescope that’s a whopping 8.4 meters in diameter!
To hitch this new search, go to cometcatchers.internet and browse a brief on-line tutorial. No expertise wanted – simply your eyes and curiosity.
