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By NASA
8 Min Read How to Contribute to Citizen Science with NASA
A number of NASA projects use mobile phone apps to put satellite data into the palm of your hand, and allow intrepid citizen scientists to upload data. Credits:
NASA A cell phone, a computer—and your curiosity—is all you need to become a NASA citizen scientist and contribute to projects about Earth, the solar system, and beyond.
Science is built from small grains of sand, and you can contribute yours from any corner of the world.
All you need is a cell phone or a computer with an internet connection to begin a scientific adventure. Can you imagine making a pioneering discovery in the cosmos? Want to help solve problems that could improve life on our planet? Or maybe you dream of helping solve an ancient mystery of the universe? All of this is possible through NASA’s Citizen Science program.
NASA defines citizen science, or participatory science, as “science projects that rely on volunteers,” said Dr. Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist and the Citizen Science Officer in the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For decades, volunteers have been supporting NASA researchers in different fields and in a variety of ways, depending on the project. They help by taking measurements, sorting data from NASA missions, and deepening our understanding of the universe and our home planet. It all counts.
“That’s science for you: It’s collaborative,” said Kuchner, who oversees the more than 30 citizen science projects NASA offers. “I connect the public and scientists to get more NASA science done.”
NASA astrophysicist Marc Kuchner is a pioneer in participatory science and today serves as NASA’s Citizen Science program officer. In 2014, Kuchner created the Disk Detective project, which helps NASA scientists study how planets form. Kuchner has also been the principal investigator for some of the agency’s many citizen science projects, but today he oversees the portfolio and promotes volunteer participation around the world.
Credit: David Friedlander A menu of projects for all tastes
Citizen scientists can come from anywhere in the world—they do not have to be U.S. citizens or residents. Volunteers help NASA look for planets in other solar systems, called exoplanets; sort clouds in Earth’s sky; observe solar eclipses; or detect comets and asteroids. Some of those space rocks are even named after the volunteers who helped find them.
Mass participation is key in initiatives that require as many human eyes as possible. “There are science projects that you can’t do without the help of a big team,” Kuchner said. For example, projects that need large datasets from space telescopes—or “things that are physically big and you need people in different places looking from different angles,” he said.
One example is Aurorasaurus, which invites people to observe and classify northern and southern auroras. “We try to study them with satellites, but it really helps to have people on the ground taking photos from different places at different times,” he explained.
“Part of the way we serve our country and humankind is by sharing not just the pretty pictures from our satellites, but the entire experience of doing science,” Kuchner said.
More than 3 million people have participated in the program. Kuchner believes that shows how much people want to be part of what he calls the “roller coaster” of science. “They want to go on that adventure with us, and we are thrilled to have them.”
The dream of discovering
“You can help scientists who are now at NASA and other organizations around the world to discover interesting things,” said Faber Burgos, a citizen scientist and science communicator from Colombia. “Truth be told, I’ve always dreamed of making history.”
Colombian citizen scientist Faber Burgos studied Modern Languages at the Colombian School of Industrial Careers and has a university degree in Classical Archaeology. Today, he is dedicated to disseminating science content through his social media accounts, focusing on children. In 2020, he and his team launched a balloon probe into the stratosphere with a camera that captured the curvature of the Earth, with the aim of demonstrating that the Earth is round. The video of that feat exceeds 97 million views on his Facebook account, earning him a Guinness World Record.
Credit: Courtesy of Faber Burgos Burgos has been involved in two projects for the past four years: the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), which searches the sky for potentially dangerous asteroids, and Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. This project uses data from NASA’s now-completed Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and its follow-up mission, NEOWISE, to search for brown dwarfs and a hypothetical ninth planet.
“There are really amazing participants in this project,” said Kuchner, who helped launch it in 2015. NASA’s WISE and NEOWISE missions detected about 2 billion sources in the sky. “So, the question is: Among those many sources, are any of them new unknowns?” he said.
The project has already found more than 4,000 brown dwarfs. These are Jupiter-sized objects—balls of gas that are too big to be planets, but too small to be stars. Volunteers have even helped discover a new type of brown dwarf.
Participants in the project are also hopeful they’ll find a hypothetical ninth planet, possibly Neptune-sized, in an orbit far beyond Pluto.
The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project asks volunteers to help search for new objects at the edge of our solar system. The assignment is to review images from NASA’s past WISE and NEOWISE missions in search of two types of astronomical objects: brown dwarfs(balls of gas the same size as Jupiter that have too little mass to be considered stars) and low-mass stars. Or, even, the hypothetical ninth planet of our Sun, known as Planet nine, or Planet X. The image shows an artist’s rendering of such a hypothetical world orbiting far from the Sun.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) Burgos explained that analyzing the images is easy. “If it’s a moving object, it’s obviously going to be something of interest,” he said. “Usually, when you see these images, everything is still. But if there’s an object moving, you have to keep an eye on it.”
Once a citizen scientist marks the object across the full image sequence, they send the information to NASA scientists to evaluate.
“As a citizen scientist, I’m happy to do my bit and, hopefully, one day discover something very interesting,” he said. “That’s the beauty of NASA—it invites everyone to be a scientist. Here, it doesn’t matter what you are, but your desire to learn.”
The first step
To become a NASA citizen scientist, start by visiting the program’s website. There you’ll find a complete list of available projects with links to their respective sites. Some are available in Spanish and other languages. Many projects are also hosted on the Zooniverse platform, which has been available since 2006.
“Another cool way to get involved is to come to one of our live events,” said Kuchner. These are virtual events open to the public, where NASA scientists present their projects and invite people to participate. “Pick a project you like—and if it’s not fun, pick a different one,” he advised. “There are wonderful relationships to be had if you reach out to scientists and other participants.”
Another way for people to get involved in citizen science is to participate in the annual NASA International Space Apps Challenge, the largest global hackathon. This two-day event creates innovation through international collaboration, providing an opportunity for participants to use NASA’s free and open data and agency partners’ space-based data to tackle real-world problems on Earth and in space. The next NASA International Space Apps Challenge will be October 4-5, 2025.
Credit: NASA Age is not the limit
People of all ages can be citizen scientists. Some projects are kid-friendly, such as Nemo-Net, an iPad game that invites participants to color coral reefs to help sort them. “I’d like to encourage young people to start there—or try a project with one of the older people in their life,” Kuchner said.
Citizen science can also take place in classrooms. In the Growing Beyond Earth project, teachers and students run experiments on how to grow plants in space for future missions. The IASC project also works with high schools to help students detect asteroids.
A student waters small plants inside a Growing Beyond Earth citizen science project grow box.
Credit: NASA Projects by the community, for the community
GLOBE Observer is another initiative with an international network of teachers and students. The platform offers a range of projects—many in Spanish—that invite people to collect data using their cell phones.
One of the most popular is the GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper, which tracks the migration and spread of mosquitoes that carry diseases. “It’s a way to help save lives—tracking the vectors that transmit malaria and Zika, among others,” Kuchner said.
Other GLOBE projects explore everything from ground cover to cloud types. Some use astronomical phenomena visible to everyone. For example, during the 2024 total solar eclipse, participants measured air temperature using their phones and shared that data with NASA scientists.
The full experience of doing science
No prior studies are needed, but many volunteers go on to collaborate on—or even lead—scientific research. More than 500 NASA citizen scientists have co-authored scientific publications.
One of them is Hugo Durantini Luca, from Córdoba, Argentina, who has participated in 17 published articles, with more on the way. For years, he explored various science projects, looking for one where he could contribute more actively.
Durantini Luca participated in one of NASA’s first citizen science projects, launched in 2006: Stardust at home. Still ongoing, this project invites volunteers to participate in the search for evidence of interstellar dust on the aerogel and aluminum foil collectors returned by NASA’s Stardust mission, using an online virtual microscope.
Credit: NASA He participated in NASA’s first citizen science project, Stardust@home, which invites users to search for interstellar dust particles in collectors from the Stardust mission, using a virtual microscope.
In 2014, he discovered Disk Detective, a project that searches for disks around stars, where planets may form. By looking at images from the WISE and NEOWISE missions, participants can help understand how worlds are born and how solar systems evolve.
“And, incidentally, if we find planets or some sign of life, all the better,” said Durantini Luca.
Although that remains a dream, they have made other discoveries—like a new kind of stellar disk called the “Peter Pan Disk,” which appears young even though the star it surrounds is not.
Durantini Luca participated in one of NASA’s first citizen science projects, launched in 2006: Stardust at home. Still ongoing, this project invites volunteers to participate in the search for evidence of interstellar dust on the aerogel and aluminum foil collectors returned by NASA’s Stardust mission, using an online virtual microscope.
Credit: NASA Science in person
In 2016, Durantini Luca got the chance to support Disk Detective with his own observations from the southern hemisphere. He traveled to El Leoncito Astronomical Complex (CASLEO), an observatory in San Juan, Argentina. There, he learned to use a spectrograph—an instrument that breaks down starlight to analyze its composition.
He treasures that experience. “Curiously, it was the first time in my life I used a telescope,” he said.
In 2016, citizen scientist Hugo Durantini Luca traveled for 18 hours to the El Leoncito Astronomical Complex (CASLEO), at the foot of the Andes Mountains. From there, he made observations of a candidate star of the Disk Detective project.
Credit: Luciano García While in-person opportunities are rare, both virtual and physical events help build community. Citizen scientists stay in touch weekly through various channels.
“Several of us are friends already—after so many years of bad jokes on calls,” said Durantini Luca.
“People send me pictures of how they met,” said Kuchner. He said the program has even changed how he does science. “It’s changed my life,” he said. “Science is already cool—and this makes it even cooler.”
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Last Updated Apr 29, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
JunoCam, the visible light imager aboard NASA’s Juno, captured this enhanced-color view of Ju-piter’s northern high latitudes from an altitude of about 36,000 miles (58,000 kilometers) above the giant planet’s cloud tops during the spacecraft’s 69th flyby on Jan. 28, 2025. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Jackie Branc (CC BY) New data from the agency’s Jovian orbiter sheds light on the fierce winds and cyclones of the gas giant’s northern reaches and volcanic action on its fiery moon.
NASA’s Juno mission has gathered new findings after peering below Jupiter’s cloud-covered atmosphere and the surface of its fiery moon, Io. Not only has the data helped develop a new model to better understand the fast-moving jet stream that encircles Jupiter’s cyclone-festooned north pole, it’s also revealed for the first time the subsurface temperature profile of Io, providing insights into the moon’s inner structure and volcanic activity.
Team members presented the findings during a news briefing in Vienna on Tuesday, April 29, at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly.
“Everything about Jupiter is extreme. The planet is home to gigantic polar cyclones bigger than Australia, fierce jet streams, the most volcanic body in our solar system, the most powerful aurora, and the harshest radiation belts,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “As Juno’s orbit takes us to new regions of Jupiter’s complex system, we’re getting a closer look at the immensity of energy this gas giant wields.”
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Made with data from the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno, this animation shows the south polar region of Jupiter’s moon Io during a Dec. 27, 2024, flyby. The bright spots are locations with higher temperatures caused by volcanic activity; the gray areas resulted when Io left the field of view.NASA/JPL/SwRI/ASI – JIRAM Team (A.M.) Lunar Radiator
While Juno’s microwave radiometer (MWR) was designed to peer beneath Jupiter’s cloud tops, the team has also trained the instrument on Io, combining its data with Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) data for deeper insights.
“The Juno science team loves to combine very different datasets from very different instruments and see what we can learn,” said Shannon Brown, a Juno scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When we incorporated the MWR data with JIRAM’s infrared imagery, we were surprised by what we saw: evidence of still-warm magma that hasn’t yet solidified below Io’s cooled crust. At every latitude and longitude, there were cooling lava flows.”
The data suggests that about 10% of the moon’s surface has these remnants of slowly cooling lava just below the surface. The result may help provide insight into how the moon renews its surface so quickly as well as how as well as how heat moves from its deep interior to the surface.
“Io’s volcanos, lava fields, and subterranean lava flows act like a car radiator,” said Brown, “efficiently moving heat from the interior to the surface, cooling itself down in the vacuum of space.”
Looking at JIRAM data alone, the team also determined that the most energetic eruption in Io’s history (first identified by the infrared imager during Juno’s Dec. 27, 2024, Io flyby) was still spewing lava and ash as recently as March 2. Juno mission scientists believe it remains active today and expect more observations on May 6, when the solar-powered spacecraft flies by the fiery moon at a distance of about 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers).
This composite image, derived from data collected in 2017 by the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno, shows the central cyclone at Jupiter’s north pole and the eight cy-clones that encircle it. Data from the mission indicates these storms are enduring fea-tures.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM Colder Climes
On its 53rd orbit (Feb 18, 2023), Juno began radio occultation experiments to explore the gas giant’s atmospheric temperature structure. With this technique, a radio signal is transmitted from Earth to Juno and back, passing through Jupiter’s atmosphere on both legs of the journey. As the planet’s atmospheric layers bend the radio waves, scientists can precisely measure the effects of this refraction to derive detailed information about the temperature and density of the atmosphere.
So far, Juno has completed 26 radio occultation soundings. Among the most compelling discoveries: the first-ever temperature measurement of Jupiter’s north polar stratospheric cap reveals the region is about 11 degrees Celsius cooler than its surroundings and is encircled by winds exceeding 100 mph (161 kph).
Polar Cyclones
The team’s recent findings also focus on the cyclones that haunt Jupiter’s north. Years of data from the JunoCam visible light imager and JIRAM have allowed Juno scientists to observe the long-term movement of Jupiter’s massive northern polar cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. Unlike hurricanes on Earth, which typically occur in isolation and at lower latitudes, Jupiter’s are confined to the polar region.
By tracking the cyclones’ movements across multiple orbits, the scientists observed that each storm gradually drifts toward the pole due to a process called “beta drift” (the interaction between the Coriolis force and the cyclone’s circular wind pattern). This is similar to how hurricanes on our planet migrate, but Earthly cyclones break up before reaching the pole due to the lack of warm, moist air needed to fuel them, as well as the weakening of the Coriolis force near the poles. What’s more, Jupiter’s cyclones cluster together while approaching the pole, and their motion slows as they begin interacting with neighboring cyclones.
“These competing forces result in the cyclones ‘bouncing’ off one another in a manner reminiscent of springs in a mechanical system,” said Yohai Kaspi, a Juno co-investigator from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. “This interaction not only stabilizes the entire configuration, but also causes the cyclones to oscillate around their central positions, as they slowly drift westward, clockwise, around the pole.”
The new atmospheric model helps explain the motion of cyclones not only on Jupiter, but potentially on other planets, including Earth.
“One of the great things about Juno is its orbit is ever-changing, which means we get a new vantage point each time as we perform a science flyby,” said Bolton. “In the extended mission, that means we’re continuing to go where no spacecraft has gone before, including spending more time in the strongest planetary radiation belts in the solar system. It’s a little scary, but we’ve built Juno like a tank and are learning more about this intense environment each time we go through it.”
More About Juno
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. Various other institutions around the U.S. provided several of the other scientific instruments on Juno.
More information about Juno is at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno
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By USH
Several days ago, a massive blackout swept across large parts of Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France. Millions were left without power as the interconnected European energy grid experienced a rare and abrupt failure. While authorities quickly pointed to a "rare atmospheric phenomenon" as the cause, not everyone is convinced.
Here are some explanations of authorities as well as controversial theories:
According to REN, Portugal’s national electricity grid operator, the blackout was triggered by a fault originating in Spain’s power infrastructure. The disruption, they claim, was linked to "induced atmospheric variation", a term referring to extreme temperature differences that led to anomalous oscillations in high-voltage transmission lines. These oscillations reportedly caused synchronization failures between regional grid systems, ultimately sparking a chain reaction of failures across the European network.
What makes the situation even more intriguing is that just days before the blackout, Spain hit a historic energy milestone. On April 16, for the first time, the country’s electricity demand was met entirely by renewable energy sources - solar, wind, and hydro, during a weekday. It raises questions whether the outage was caused by a technical failure of this new renewable energy system.
While this achievement is noteworthy, it also exposes the fragility of a grid increasingly reliant on variable energy sources, especially solar, which can fluctuate dramatically with weather and atmospheric conditions.
Despite official explanations, some experts and observers remain skeptical. There were no solar flares or geomagnetic storms in the days leading up to the blackout, and solar activity had been relatively calm. Critics argue that while atmospheric disturbances may have played a role, they are not sufficient to explain such a widespread, synchronized failure.
Despite the fact that the blackout this time was probably not caused by solar flares or geomagnetic storms it has been proven that Earth’s magnetic shield is rapidly weakening, leaving us increasingly vulnerable to powerful solar storms. The magnetic north pole is accelerating toward Siberia, and the South Atlantic Anomaly continues to expand, ominous signs that a looming plasma event could bring consequences far beyond just technological disruption.
This has led to speculation that the blackout could have been intentional, possibly even a test run for handling future crises or threats to infrastructure.
Among the more controversial theories is the suggestion that this event might have involved the use of a graphite bomb, a non-lethal weapon designed to disable power grids. These devices disperse ultra-fine carbon filaments into high-voltage power lines, causing short circuits by creating conductive paths between lines. Such an attack would appear as a grid malfunction but could be devastating in scale.
Another controversial theory is that the outage has been caused by weather manipulation systems such as HAARP or the Ice Cube Neutrino observatory, constructed at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica.
Could this have been a covert drill or a demonstration of vulnerability? Some point to global forums, such as the World Government Summit, where figures like Klaus Schwab have warned about Black Swan: An unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.
Whether the blackout was triggered by a rare natural event, a technical failure, or something more deliberate, it seems only a matter of time before we face a true Black Swan event. View the full article
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By NASA
1 min read
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On April 16, 2025, the Earth Science Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley held an Earth Science Showcase to share its work with the center and their families. As part of this event, kids were invited to share something they like about the Earth. These are their masterpieces.
Sora U. Age 9. “Wildlife”
Sora U. Age 9. “Wildlife” Wesley P. Age 2.5. “Pale Blue”
Wesley P. Age 2.5. “Pale Blue” Kira U. Age 5. “Hawaii”
Kira U. Age 5. “Hawaii” Anonymous. “eARTh”
Anonymous. “eARTh” Brooks P. Age 8mo. “Squiggles”
Brooks P. Age 8mo. “Squiggles” About the Author
Milan Loiacono
Science Communication SpecialistMilan Loiacono is a science communication specialist for the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center.
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Last Updated Apr 25, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular cluster Messier 72 (M72).ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini, G. Piotto, M. Libralato As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, the European Space Agency (ESA) shared new images that revisited stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.
ESA/Hubble released new images of NGC 346, the Sombrero Galaxy, and the Eagle Nebula earlier in the month. Now they are revisiting the star cluster Messier 72 (M72).
M72 is a collection of stars, formally known as a globular cluster, located in the constellation Aquarius roughly 50,000 light-years from Earth. The intense gravitational attraction between the closely packed stars gives globular clusters their regular, spherical shape. There are roughly 150 known globular clusters associated with the Milky Way galaxy.
The striking variety in the color of the stars in this image of M72, particularly compared to the original image, results from the addition of ultraviolet observations to the previous visible-light data. The colors indicate groups of different types of stars. Here, blue stars are those that were originally more massive and have reached hotter temperatures after burning through much of their hydrogen fuel; the bright red objects are lower-mass stars that have become red giants. Studying these different groups help astronomers understand how globular clusters, and the galaxies they were born in, initially formed.
Pierre Méchain, a French astronomer and colleague of Charles Messier, discovered M72 in 1780. It was the first of five star clusters that Méchain would discover while assisting Messier. They recorded the cluster as the 72nd entry in Messier’s famous collection of astronomical objects. It is also one of the most remote clusters in the catalog.
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