Suggested Searches

Citizen Science Highlights

NASA needs your help! You can collaborate with professional scientists, conduct cutting-edge science, and make real discoveries. A science degree is not required, just a passion for understanding the natural world. Here, you can read news about NASA-funded citizen science projects, new discoveries, and opportunities to get involved. For more information on current citizen science projects.

650 NASA Volunteers Have Co-Authored Scientific Papers
6 min read

After a recent count, NASA Citizen Science is proud to report that more than 650 people who have volunteered to participate in NASA citizen science projects have co-authored peer-reviewed research papers with scientists on those project teams. These volunteers made…

Article
NASA Volunteers Double Known Population of Brown Dwarfs
2 min read

A new paper from NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project announces that volunteers have essentially doubled the number of known brown dwarfs, with over 3,000 new discoveries made over the past 10 years since the project began. Brown dwarfs are…

Article
You Can Help Humans Thrive in Space
3 min read

The second Artemis mission took four astronauts around the moon and back – the first crewed deep-space flight since 1972. Not everyone gets a chance to put on a space suit, but you can still be an important part of…

Article
Volunteers Help NASA Astronauts Record Lunar Flashes
3 min read

As NASA’s Artemis II astronauts zipped around the Moon in early April, they observed flashes of light caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. At the same time, volunteers for the NASA-funded Impact Flash project scanned the Moon with their…

Article
Volunteers Discover Rare Space Weather Events Using Their Ears
2 min read

Scientists are working to understand exactly how these waves behave, and the team behind NASA’s Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas (HARP) citizen science project approaches this in a unique way: they compare the Earth’s magnetic field to a giant harp…

Article
NASA Data Hackathon Inspires Community Action
4 min read

On Jan. 31, students, library staff, researchers, and community members gathered at the University of Florida’s (UF) Marston Science Library for the Environmental Monitoring through Education, Research, and Geospatial Engagement (EMERGE) NASA Data Hackathon. This initiative empowers libraries, educators, and…

Article
Hail Yeah! NASA Researchers Use Volunteer Observations for Hail Estimates
2 min read

The bigger the hailstone, the more damage it can cause. But scientists find that predicting hailstone size can be challenging. How quickly does hail melt as it falls?

Article
Volunteers Find Oddly High Solar Flare Rates
2 min read

Patches of the Sun’s surface often show strong magnetic fields. These fields can emerge within a matter of hours, and can decay slowly or quickly, sometimes over days, weeks, or even months. Thanks to a new study about these long-lived…

Article
Extra Extra! Extra Data Stream Added to the Daily Minor Planet!
2 min read

The Daily Minor Planet citizen science project is expanding! In addition to data received nightly from the Catalina Sky Survey's Mt. Lemmon telescope in Arizona, the project’s science team is now processing images from the Bok 2.3-meter telescope at Kitt…

Article
NASA Volunteers Study Biofilm Adaptability in Space
2 min read

Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that stick to one another and also adhere to a nearby surface. They are intricately associated with life on Earth, enabling functions essential to human and plant systems.

Article