Exoasteroids
Some day in the distant future, our Sun will collapse into a dense, planet-sized object called a white dwarf. Studying the white dwarfs outside of our solar system today can give us clues to our future.
Many white dwarfs are surrounded by dusty disks, thought to be remnants of their planetary systems. These disks may yet harbor orbiting bodies such as asteroids and comets that give us clues to these systems’ pasts.
Help astronomers discover debris disks and asteroids around white dwarfs using images taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. We call asteroids that orbit stars other than the Sun "exoasteroids." Join our search for exoasteroids around white dwarfs, planet-sized objects that represent the final evolutionary stage of Sun-like stars!
ages
18 and up
division
Astrophysics
where
Online
launched
2024
What you’ll do
- Learn how to spot variability in the brightness of distant white dwarf stars observed by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope.
- Interact with peers and scientists on the project’s Zooniverse TALK bulletin board.
- Want to do more? Project provides image metadata (data about the data) and links to astronomical databases to find out even more about these objects!
Requirements
- Time: 5-15 minutes to complete the tutorial
- Equipment: web-connected device
- Knowledge: None. In project tutorial provides all instruction needed.
Get started!
- Visit our project website to learn how to identify variable white dwarf stars, which might be home to exoasteroids.
- Complete the project tutorial.
- Start looking at timelapse images of white dwarf stars to find the variable ones that might be hosting asteroids!
Learn More
Visit our project website to learn about exoasteroids and what they might reveal about the life cycles of stars, planets, and the movement through the universe of the building blocks of life.
Get to know the people of Exoasteroids!
