NASA

Find Exoasteroids and Peek into the Future

What will remain of our solar system a few billion years from now? We’re launching the Exoasteroids project to gather some clues. Join this new citizen science project, and help search for variable white dwarfs – bizarre objects that we can catch in the act of disassembling planetary systems. White dwarfs each pack the mass […]

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Sep 23, 2024 - 21:00

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Find Exoasteroids and Peek into the Future

This is an artist’s concept of exoasteroids in space, featuring rocky asteroids of various sizes orbiting around a distant star. The scene depicts a dense asteroid belt, illuminated by the bright light of a star in the background, with dust and debris scattered throughout the space between the asteroids.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

What will remain of our solar system a few billion years from now? We’re launching the Exoasteroids project to gather some clues. Join this new citizen science project, and help search for variable white dwarfs – bizarre objects that we can catch in the act of disassembling planetary systems.

White dwarfs each pack the mass of a star into a ball the size of a planet. They are also the future of our solar system. A few billion years from now, the Sun will evolve into a red giant and then into a white dwarf, devouring the innermost planets and millions of asteroids in the process.

With the Exoasteroids project, you’ll search for white dwarfs that are growing brighter or dimmer. Such white dwarfs may be remnants of planetary systems still actively munching on asteroids, leading to outbursts detectable in images from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope.

Help us find planetary remains and disintegrating asteroids in other solar systems!

Anyone with a laptop or cell phone can participate. Participation does not require citizenship in any particular country.