More about Planet Hunters NGTS

We were excited to announce yesterday a new chapter in the Planet Hunters project with Planet Hunters NGTS. Here’s a bit more background for those of you who are new to the exoplanet hunt. 

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) has been searching for extrasolar planets (exoplanets) around other stars for over 5 years but we can’t be sure we’ve found them all without your help. Exoplanets are planets outside our own Solar System. We know of their existence from various techniques, most popularly the exoplanet transit method. This method works by observing a star and watching for regular dips in the amount of light emitted by the star. These dips can be caused by other stars (“binary companions”), exoplanets and other strange objects but we can use the size and shape of the dips to pick the most promising planet candidates. Smaller dips typically correspond to exoplanets, for example Jupiter causes a 1% dip in our Sun’s light for any aliens looking our way. The best planet candidates will be chosen for follow-up observations with different techniques to hopefully confirm whether they really are planets!

Planet Hunters and Planet Hunters TESS used data from NASA space telescopes to search for these dips. This project differs slightly as we’re using the NGTS facility which sits atop a mountain in Chile, surveying the sky every night with its 12 telescopes. Computers have searched the NGTS observations to find these dips but the NGTS team can’t check everything the computer finds as there are just too many candidates. Not every dip is caused by a planet but our handy tutorials will guide you through and turn you into an exoplanet spotting expert.

Finding more exoplanets will allow us to learn more about how planets are formed and how they evolve, which in turn will teach us more about our own Solar System and the Earth we live on. If we can understand the architecture of our own Solar System and other exo-planetary systems, then we can better approach the search for life beyond Earth.

We look forward to working together with you and hope you enjoy the project!

Sean & the Planet Hunters NGTS team