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.

 

Universe, Citizen Science
Sep 20, 2023
In 2005, high school student Quanzhi Ye reported the discovery of a tiny "sungrazing" comet via the NASA-funded Sungrazer Citizen Science Project. It was the first of several such discoveries for him via this project, and was the project's 1,019th comet discovery. 
Black and white image from a telescope with light streaming down from the upper left corner over a few white dots. One small faint white dot in the middle of the image is circled.
Solar System, Citizen Science
Sep 18, 2023
The Minor Planet Center is the official worldwide organization in charge of collecting observational data on asteroids, comets, and other minor planets. The Minor Planet Center's recent Circular, MPC 163237-164686, credits 115 volunteers from The Daily Minor Planet as “measurers”, meaning they... Read More
Image of the milky way with a telescope in the foreground
Citizen Science
Sep 14, 2023
When the moon blocks the sun, do crickets really begin chirping as if night were coming on? How do other kinds of insects and animals respond to a solar eclipse? The new Eclipse Soundscapes Project invites you to collect multi-sensory observations and sound recordings during the upcoming October 14... Read More
Silhouette of a grasshopper against an orange sunset background.
Sun, Citizen Science
Sep 5, 2023
NASA’s citizen science program reaches more than two million volunteers in more than 167 countries—and it’s growing even larger! NASA is funding eleven new awards across the U.S. to develop or support citizen science projects.
The Sun shown in red and orange, swirled with darker inactive areas and brighter active areas. On the right side of the Sun, there is a very bright region where the flare erupts.
Solar System, Citizen Science
Aug 1, 2023
NASA needs your help spotting changes on the surface of Earth's nearest neighbor – the Moon! Join MoonDiff, our newest volunteer science project, and help scientists learn about the Moon’s dynamic surface.
A screenshot of the MoonDiff website with two images, side by side. The image of the moon on the left is lighter than the image of the moon on the right.
Sun, Citizen Science
Jul 25, 2023
Want to do your own radio astronomy? NASA’s Radio JOVE citizen science project wants your help studying the Sun. Join the project and use your own radio telescope to make coordinated observations of the Sun for the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses over the Americas!
Radio Jove branding with a collage of images including solar flares, jupiter and colorful data charts
Solar System, Citizen Science
Jul 14, 2023
What happens when 500 dedicated volunteers band together to tackle a set of really complex data? Science gets done -- fast! A NASA-funded Zooniverse project called Solar Active Region Spotters recently reached the end of its data set, as the volunteers tore through over 850 sets of observations in... Read More
A chart with Helioprojective Latitude on the x-axis and helioprojective longitude on the y-axis. The data looks like a swirling gold cloud with bursts of light.
Universe, Citizen Science
Jun 27, 2023
Help scientists uncover brown dwarfs, celestial neighbors of our Sun! Brown dwarfs are objects with masses in the range between stars and giant planets like Jupiter. Picture them as oversized versions of Jupiter, drifting alone in the vastness of space. They are relatively cool compared to our Sun... Read More
Aqua green planet illustration sits behind the title text Cool Neighbors with another small planet in the upper right. An orange stroke line surrounds the logo.
Universe, Citizen Science
May 30, 2023
As the universe expands, it stretches out the waves of light coming from distant galaxies. Now you can measure this stretching, or “redshift” and use it to look back in time. The new Redshift Wrangler citizen science project, hosted by Zoonverse, asks you to help astronomers peer across billions of... Read More
This Redshift Wrangler project logo shows a cartoon depiction of an astronaut in space wearing a white astronaut suit and the kind of brown, wide-brimmed hat a ranch hand or cowpoke might wear. The astronaut holds the end of a lasso, the loop of which circles above the astronaut’s head, having encircled a galaxy. The galaxy is a swirl of colors similar to those that make up the visible light spectrum, blue on the left and fading into green, yellow, orange, and red as the color spreads to the right side of t
Solar System
May 16, 2023
This just in: NASA’s new Daily Minor Planet project seeks your help discovering and tracking asteroids—in a dazzling new data set. Remember asteroids, those lumps of rock tumbling through space left over from the formation of our solar system? There are so many reasons to find these objects. Some... Read More