Here at CosmoQuest, we love citizen science. We were built on citizen science and community. So I’m always thrilled when I see a story come out where citizen scientists have done well. And this next story even comes from my other home institution, the SETI Institute.

Some of you may have heard about a new company called Unistellar that has produced an all-in-one telescope. The telescope is cool, but what’s even cooler is that its users are automatically part of a global network of astronomers who can perform science with very little warning. Twenty-six of those astronomers recently detected and modeled a near-Earth asteroid (NEA), making them the first planetary defense team of citizen astronomers.

The asteroid in question is 1999 AP10, one of about 20,000 known NEAs. Astronomers from Austria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States all turned their eVscopes to observe the asteroid in October and November of this year. The information collected allowed Joseph Durech, from Charles University in Prague, to model the asteroid, making 1999 AP10 only the 69th NEA whose shape we know.

Franck Marchis, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute and Chief Scientific Officer of Unistellar said: The Unistellar network of citizen astronomers accomplished something that professional astronomers have rarely done before. This proves the potential for meaningful Planetary Defense work to be conducted by everyday citizens who share a passion for space. Continuous observations of Near-Earth Asteroids when they are close to Earth are critical to understand them and potentially mitigate their risk to our planet.

Way to go, team. This result isn’t the first from the SETI Institute and Unistellar science partnership, and I doubt it will be the last. You know I’ll keep you all informed of future work.

More Information

SETI Institute press release