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Exoplanet Citizen Science

NASA’s citizen science projects welcome members of the public to work with NASA data. Collaborating with NASA scientists, volunteers known as citizen scientists have helped make thousands of important discoveries. Learn how you too can help NASA researchers search for and study worlds beyond our solar system.

  • Exoplanet Watch

    Observe transiting exoplanets with small telescopes. You do not need to own your own telescope in order to participate.

    Learn More About Exoplanet Watch

    A child gazes into the eyepiece of a small telescope set up on a grassy lawn at night as an adult woman looks on. Other observers and telescopes are nearby.
    Attendees look through telescopes on the South Lawn of the White House during the second White House Astronomy Night on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015.
    NASA/Joel Kowsky

  • Exoplanet Explorers

    Discover new planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy.

    Learn More About Exoplanet Explorers

    Kepler telescope
    The Kepler Space Telescope
    NASA

  • Planet Hunters TESS

    Search for undiscovered worlds using data from NASA’s TESS mission.

    Learn More About Planet Hunters TESS

    Illustration of TESS sending data back to Deep Space Network antenna.
    NASA/Ames/Wendy Stenzel

  • Backyard Worlds

    Search the realm beyond Neptune for new brown dwarfs and planets.

    Learn More About Backyard Worlds

    Illustration with black background and a larger red sphere in the foreground and a small white-blue glowing sphere in the distance.
    Illustration of an ultracool brown dwarf with a companion white dwarf. Citizen scientist Frank Kiwy, participant in the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, discovered 34 new ultracool dwarf binary systems in the Sun's neighborhood.
    NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick

  • Planet Patrol

    Help find out which planet candidates from the TESS mission are real.

    Learn More About Planet Patrol

    An artist's concept of TESS, with Earth in the background.
    TESS will look at the nearest, brightest stars to find planetary candidates that scientists will observe for years to come.
    NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

  • Disk Detective

    Spot the disks around nearby stars where planets form and dwell.

    Learn More About Disk Detective

    Holden Disk
    This rendering of a disk around an M-dwarf star, created by citizen scientist Jonathan Holden, illustrates a finding from the Disk Detective project.
    NASA/Jonathan Holden

  • UNITE: Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets

    NASA’s TESS mission has identified many new exoplanets, and now astronomers need help to characterize their orbits, as a first step in learning about them. The worldwide Unistellar network of amateur and professional astronomers is documenting the timing of exoplanets' transits, to better describe their orbits.

    Learn More About UNITE

    Three planets and a bright star appear against a backdrop of pinpricks of light of distant stars. The largest, a light-brown orb with the swirly appearance of a gas giant, fills the right hand side of the frame. In the lower left, just in front of the big light brown body, we see a smaller, darker body, its top surface lit by the light from the bright star in the upper left. The third planetary body, the smallest yet, lies between the smaller body and the star. It casts a long shadow across the dust of space.
    An artist’s interpretation of a gas giant in its planetary system.
    NASA/JPL

  • NASA Citizen Science

    NASA offers a range of citizen science projects; some can be done by anyone, anywhere, with just a cellphone or laptop. Check out all the ways you can work on NASA science.

    Learn More About NASA Citizen Science

    Photo of 3 girls facing away from the camera in a field looking at the night sky, they are each wrapped in very colorful blankets.
    A new SciGirls TV special called “Dakota Stars” features NASA’s Disk Detective citizen science project.
    NASA

Citizen Science in Action: Exoplanet Candidate HD 137010 b

  • Research by volunteers led to the discovery of a possible cool, rocky exoplanet, slightly larger than Earth

    Exoplanet candidate HD 137010 b was discovered orbiting a Sun-like star 146 light-years away. An international team of professional and amateur astronomers published “A Cool Earth-sized Planet Candidate Transiting a Tenth Magnitude K-dwarf From K2” in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Jan. 27, 2026. The paper’s authors include several volunteers from NASA’s Planet Hunters citizen science project — Hans Martin Schwengeler, Martti H. Kristiansen, Mark Omohundro, and Ivan A. Terentev, as well as lead author Alexander Venner, who participated in this citizen science project before he completed his Ph.D.
    NASA's citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. Learn how to get involved with NASA Citizen Science.

    Read the Article: ‘Discovery Alert: An Ice-Cold Earth?’

    A planet illuminated against the blackness of space, its axis tilted to the left of the frame. The planet has a wide band of pale orange around its equator, pale blue regions above and below that, and wispy white clouds scattered around its face.
    Artist's concept of exoplanet candidate HD 137010 b, dubbed an "ice-cold Earth" because it's a possible rocky planet slightly larger than Earth, orbiting a Sun-like star about 146 light-years away.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech/Keith Miller (Caltech/IPAC)

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