The site is led and funded by NASA and developed by the Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage the Internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects.
WISE, located in Earth orbit and designed to survey the entire sky in infrared light, completed two scans between 2010 and 2011. It took detailed measurements of more than 745 million objects, representing the most comprehensive survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available. Astronomers have used computers to search this haystack of data for planet-forming environments and narrowed the field to about a half-million sources that shine brightly in the infrared, indicating they may be \"needles\": dust-rich circumstellar disks that are absorbing their star's light and reradiating it as heat.
Planets form and grow within these disks. But galaxies, interstellar dust clouds, and asteroids also glow in the infrared, which stymies automated efforts to identify planetary habitats.
Disk Detective incorporates images from WISE and other sky surveys in the form of brief animations the website calls flip books. Volunteers view a flip book and then classify the object based on simple criteria, such as whether the image is round or includes multiple objects. By collecting this information, astronomers will be able to assess which sources should be explored in greater detail.
The project aims to find two types of developing planetary environments. The first, known as young stellar object disks, typically are less than 5 million years old, contain large quantities of gas, and are often found in or near young star clusters. For comparison, our own solar system is 4.6 billion years old.
The other type of habitat is called a debris disk. These systems tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. Vega and Fomalhaut, two of the brightest stars in the sky, host debris disks.
Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 344968, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11436/#media_group_344968", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
For complete transcript, click here.", "items": [ { "id": 305567, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459746, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/Disk_Detective_Still_2.png", "filename": "Disk_Detective_Still_2.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305568, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459747, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/Disk_Detective_Still_2_web.png", "filename": "Disk_Detective_Still_2_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 305569, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459748, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/Disk_Detective_Still_2_thm.png", "filename": "Disk_Detective_Still_2_thm.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 80, "height": 40, "pixels": 3200 } }, { "id": 305557, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459758, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv.webmhd.webm", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv.webmhd.webm", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 305558, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459752, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/11436_Disk_Detective2_ProRes_1280x720_59.94.mov", "filename": "11436_Disk_Detective2_ProRes_1280x720_59.94.mov", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305559, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459750, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/11436_Disk_Detective2_H264_Best_1280x720_59.94.mov", "filename": "11436_Disk_Detective2_H264_Best_1280x720_59.94.mov", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305560, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459749, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/11436_Disk_Detective2_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.mov", "filename": "11436_Disk_Detective2_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.mov", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305561, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459753, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305562, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459757, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_1280x720.wmv", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_1280x720.wmv", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305563, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459755, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv.m4v", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv.m4v", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 305564, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459751, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/11436_Disk_Detective2_MPEG4_1280X720_29.97.mp4", "filename": "11436_Disk_Detective2_MPEG4_1280X720_29.97.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 305572, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459759, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 305565, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459756, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_ipod_lg.m4v", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_ipod_lg.m4v", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 640, "height": 360, "pixels": 230400 } }, { "id": 305570, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 853464, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2.en_US.vtt", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2.en_US.vtt", "media_type": "Captions", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "label": "English", "language_code": "" } }, { "id": 305571, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 853465, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2.en_US.srt", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2.en_US.srt", "media_type": "Captions", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "label": "English", "language_code": "" } }, { "id": 305566, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459754, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_ipod_sm.mp4", "filename": "G2014-004_Disk_Detective2_FINAL_ipod_sm.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Take a tour of DiskDetective.org with Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 320, "height": 240, "pixels": 76800 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 344969, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11436/#media_group_344969", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Marc Kuchner, the principal investigator for DiskDetective.org (left) and James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate, discuss the crowdsourcing project in front of the hyperwall at Goddard's Science Visualization Lab.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/David Friedlander
", "items": [ { "id": 305573, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459760, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/DD_Kuchner_Garvin.jpg", "filename": "DD_Kuchner_Garvin.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Marc Kuchner, the principal investigator for DiskDetective.org (left) and James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate, discuss the crowdsourcing project in front of the hyperwall at Goddard's Science Visualization Lab. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/David Friedlander", "width": 1600, "height": 1067, "pixels": 1707200 } }, { "id": 305574, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459761, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/DD_Kuchner_Garvin_web.png", "filename": "DD_Kuchner_Garvin_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Marc Kuchner, the principal investigator for DiskDetective.org (left) and James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate, discuss the crowdsourcing project in front of the hyperwall at Goddard's Science Visualization Lab. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/David Friedlander", "width": 320, "height": 213, "pixels": 68160 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 344970, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11436/#media_group_344970", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org.
Credit: NASA/Hubble/Chris Burrows (STScI)", "items": [ { "id": 305576, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459762, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-1999-05-j-full_Triple.jpg", "filename": "hs-1999-05-j-full_Triple.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org. Credit: NASA/Hubble/Chris Burrows (STScI)", "width": 1005, "height": 1005, "pixels": 1010025 } }, { "id": 305578, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459765, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-1999-05-j-full_Triple_web.png", "filename": "hs-1999-05-j-full_Triple_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org. Credit: NASA/Hubble/Chris Burrows (STScI)", "width": 320, "height": 320, "pixels": 102400 } }, { "id": 305575, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459764, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-1999-05-j-full-Triple.tif", "filename": "hs-1999-05-j-full-Triple.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org. Credit: NASA/Hubble/Chris Burrows (STScI)", "width": 1005, "height": 1005, "pixels": 1010025 } }, { "id": 305577, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459763, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-1999-05-j-full_tif.tif", "filename": "hs-1999-05-j-full_tif.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Herbig-Haro 30 is the prototype of a gas-rich young stellar object disk. The dark disk spans 40 billion miles in this image, cutting the bright nebula in two and blocking the central star from direct view. Volunteers can help astronomers find more disks like this through DiskDetective.org. Credit: NASA/Hubble/Chris Burrows (STScI)", "width": 335, "height": 335, "pixels": 112225 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 344971, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11436/#media_group_344971", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Debris disks, such as this one around the bright star Fomalhaut, tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. The radial streaks are scattered starlight.
Credit: NASA/ESA/P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (UC Berkeley), M. Clampin (Goddard); M. Fitzgerald (LLNL); K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (JPL)", "items": [ { "id": 305579, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459768, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-2008-39-b-full_tif.jpg", "filename": "hs-2008-39-b-full_tif.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Debris disks, such as this one around the bright star Fomalhaut, tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. The radial streaks are scattered starlight. Credit: NASA/ESA/P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (UC Berkeley), M. Clampin (Goddard); M. Fitzgerald (LLNL); K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (JPL)", "width": 2544, "height": 1905, "pixels": 4846320 } }, { "id": 305581, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459767, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-2008-39-b-full_tif_web.png", "filename": "hs-2008-39-b-full_tif_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Debris disks, such as this one around the bright star Fomalhaut, tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. The radial streaks are scattered starlight. Credit: NASA/ESA/P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (UC Berkeley), M. Clampin (Goddard); M. Fitzgerald (LLNL); K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (JPL)", "width": 320, "height": 239, "pixels": 76480 } }, { "id": 305580, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 459766, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011436/hs-2008-39-b-full_tif.tif", "filename": "hs-2008-39-b-full_tif.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Debris disks, such as this one around the bright star Fomalhaut, tend to be older than 5 million years, possess little or no gas, and contain belts of rocky or icy debris that resemble the asteroid and Kuiper belts found in our own solar system. The radial streaks are scattered starlight. Credit: NASA/ESA/P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (UC Berkeley), M. Clampin (Goddard); M. Fitzgerald (LLNL); K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (JPL)", "width": 2544, "height": 1905, "pixels": 4846320 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 344972, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11436/#media_group_344972", "widget": "Basic text", "title": "For More Information", "caption": "", "description": "See the following sources:\n\n* [http://www.diskdetective.org](http://www.diskdetective.org)\n* [http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-sponsored-disk-detective-lets-public-search-for-new-planetary-nurseries/](http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-sponsored-disk-detective-lets-public-search-for-new-planetary-nurseries/)", "items": [], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "gms", "funding_sources": [ "NASA Astrophysics" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Animator", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" }, { "name": "Chris Meaney", "employer": "HTSI" } ] }, { "role": "Video editor", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Narrator", "people": [ { "name": "Marc Kuchner", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Producer", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Scientist", "people": [ { "name": "Marc Kuchner", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Project support", "people": [ { "name": "Swarupa Nune", "employer": "Vantage" }, { "name": "Genna Duberstein", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Videographer", "people": [ { "name": "Rob Andreoli", "employer": "Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc." }, { "name": "John Caldwell", "employer": "Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc." } ] }, { "role": "Writer", "people": [ { "name": "Francis Reddy", "employer": "Syneren Technologies" } ] } ], "missions": [], "series": [ "Astrophysics Features", "Narrated Movies" ], "tapes": [ "Disk Detective (Produced by: Robert Crippen)" ], "papers": [], "datasets": [], "nasa_science_categories": [ "Planets & Moons", "Universe" ], "keywords": [ "Ast", "Astrophysics", "Exoplanet", "HDTV", "Narrated", "Protoplanetary Disk", "Star" ], "recommended_pages": [], "related": [ { "id": 12498, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12498/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Join the Search for New Nearby Worlds", "description": "Join the search for new worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in nearby interstellar space at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Krystofer D.J. KimMusic: \"Novelty Act\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.png (1920x1080) [2.1 MB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.jpg (1920x1080) [303.6 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_print.jpg (1024x576) [104.8 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_searchweb.png (320x180) [49.5 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_thm.png (80x40) [4.8 KB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_ProRes_1920x1080.mov (1920x1080) [679.1 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [176.5 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_1080p.mov (1920x1080) [76.4 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Compatible.m4v (960x540) [16.4 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Good_1080.m4v (1920x1080) [51.3 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_720p.mov (1280x720) [46.9 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Compatible.webm (960x540) [5.5 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_New_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [531 bytes] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_New_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [544 bytes] || ", "release_date": "2017-02-15T12:55:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:47:56.104977-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 416469, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012400/a012498/Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.jpg", "filename": "Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Join the search for new worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in nearby interstellar space at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Krystofer D.J. KimMusic: \"Novelty Act\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 10628, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10628/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "'Disk Detectives' Top 1 Million Classifications in Search for Planetary Habitats", "description": "Volunteers using DiskDetective, a NASA-sponsored citizen science website to find potential planetary nurseries, have made 1 million classifications in less than a year. Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator, explains how it works.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. || Image_1mill.png (1690x944) [2.9 MB] || Image_1mill_thm.png (80x40) [10.0 KB] || Image_1mill_web.png (320x178) [144.2 KB] || Image_1mill_searchweb.png (320x180) [145.3 KB] || Image_1mill_web.jpg (319x178) [36.8 KB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_appletv_subtitles.m4v (960x540) [69.2 MB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [167.3 MB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_prores.mov (1280x720) [2.5 GB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_appletv.m4v (960x540) [69.2 MB] || G2015-002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [76.0 MB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_nasaportal.mov (640x360) [61.7 MB] || G2015-002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_720x480.wmv (720x480) [60.7 MB] || G2015-002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_720x480.webm (720x480) [19.6 MB] || G2015_002_Updated_DiskDetectives.en_US.srt [3.2 KB] || G2015_002_Updated_DiskDetectives.en_US.vtt [3.2 KB] || G2015-002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [28.7 MB] || G2015_002_Update_to_DiskDetectives_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [14.3 MB] || ", "release_date": "2015-01-06T13:15:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:50:10.398640-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 447723, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010600/a010628/Image_1mill.png", "filename": "Image_1mill.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Volunteers using DiskDetective, a NASA-sponsored citizen science website to find potential planetary nurseries, have made 1 million classifications in less than a year. Goddard astrophysicist Marc Kuchner, the project's principal investigator, explains how it works.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1690, "height": 944, "pixels": 1595360 } }, { "id": 11580, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11580/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Disk Detective Tutorial", "description": "Have you discovered a planetary system today? At DiskDetective.org, you can help NASA scientists find new planetary systems, by searching for disks of dust around nearby stars using images from the WISE space telescope and other telescopes. This tutorial, made by top citizen scientists based on their experience, will help you get started working together with professional astronomers on cutting-edge research, hunting through the Galaxy. || ", "release_date": "2014-06-25T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:50:48.579900-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 453796, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011500/a011580/Disk_Detective_Tutorial_Still.png", "filename": "Disk_Detective_Tutorial_Still.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A short basic tutorial video for using the Disk Detective website.Watch this video on YouTube.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 11499, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11499/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Beta Pictoris: Icy Debris Suggests 'Shepherd' Planet", "description": "An international team of astronomers exploring the disk of gas and dust the bright star Beta Pictoris have uncovered a compact cloud of poisonous gas formed by ongoing rapid-fire collisions among a swarm of icy, comet-like bodies. The researchers suggest the comet swarm may be frozen debris trapped and concentrated by the gravity of an as-yet-unseen planet.Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, astronomers mapped millimeter-wavelength light from dust and carbon monoxide (CO) molecules in a disk surrounding the star. Located about 63 light-years away and only 20 million years old, Beta Pictoris hosts one of the closest, brightest and youngest debris disks known, making it an ideal laboratory for studying the early development of planetary systems. The ALMA images reveal a vast belt of carbon monoxide located at the fringes of the system. Much of the gas is concentrated in a single clump located about 8 billion miles (13 billion kilometers) from the star, or nearly three times the distance between the planet Neptune and the sun. The total amount of CO observed, the scientists say, exceeds 200 million billion tons, equivalent to about one-sixth the mass of Earth’s oceans.The presence of all this gas is a clue that something interesting is going on because ultraviolet starlight breaks up CO molecules in about 100 years, much faster than the main cloud can complete a single orbit around the star. Scientists calculate that a large comet must be completely destroyed every five minutes to offset the destruction of CO molecules. Only an unusually massive and compact swarm of comets could support such an astonishingly high collision rate.The researchers think these comet swarms formed when a as-yet-undetected planet migrated outward, sweeping icy bodies into resonant orbits. When the orbital periods of the comets matched the planet's in some simple ratio – say, two orbits for every three of the planet – the comets received a nudge from the planet at the same location each orbit. Like the regular push of a child's swing, these accelerations amplify over time and work to confine the comets in a small region. || ", "release_date": "2014-03-06T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:06.704856-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 457608, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011499/Beta_Pic_Reddy_4k_web.jpg", "filename": "Beta_Pic_Reddy_4k_web.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This artist's concept illustrates the preferred model for explaining ALMA observations of Beta Pictoris. At the outer fringes of the system, the gravitational influence of a hypothetical giant planet (bottom left) captures comets into a dense, massive swarm (right) where frequent collisions occur. The one planet known in the system, Beta Pictoris b, is shown near the star.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/F. Reddy", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }