geekosystem

Planet Hunters is a project that enlists the help of "citizen scientists" to help sort through the extensive data provided by NASA's Kepler mission. 15 new planets have been discovered by Planet Hunters that fall into the habitable, or "Goldilocks" zone, where the planet is at the right distance from a star to have liquid water. The discovery of the planets could mean there are many more of these worlds than initially thought, which is good news for anyone desperate to get off this planet just as soon as possible.

NASA's New Horizon's probe is currently hurtling toward Pluto at incredible speeds, but what happens after it gets there is still an open topic. After completing the first flyby of distant not-quite-a-planet Pluto, New Horizons will have enough fuel left over to take a stroll through the Kuiper Belt. NASA mission planners are considering making a visit to one, maybe two, of the objects in this distant field of rocky debris. To help provide data for mission planners, citizen-science instigator Zooniverse wants to bring you (yes, you!) into the search for possible targets. The project is called Icehunters, and it invites users to help ferret out icy objects that would be worth a look. Like other citizen science projects from Zooniverse, the idea is that humans are simply better and more efficient at identifying objects in messy data.