Log Astronomy: Citizen scientists make a big impact!

Jumat, 10 Maret 2023

Citizen scientists make a big impact!

Unistellar's network of citizen scientists captures DART Mission impact data live!

Telescopes

Binoculars

Microscopes

Making a big impact!

"We are the only group to publish the result of the impact live. We succeeded in observing it. And the reason is that we have a network of people, citizen astronomers, motivated enough to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. to do this observation."

- Franck Marchis

Unistellar's network of citizen scientists captures DART Mission impact data live

On September 26, 2022, NASA's DART Mission successfully completed the first-ever full-scale planetary defense test by colliding with the smaller moonlet, Dimorphos, orbiting the double asteroid, Didymos.

The Unistellar Citizen Science Team, led by Franck Marchis at the SETI Institute, played a significant role in observing and capturing the impact data in real-time using small and sophisticated Unistellar evScopes. Despite being some of the smallest telescopes used to observe the impact, the Unistellar Citizen Science network provided detailed observations of the effects of the impact, including the initial, fast-moving ejecta plume, continuous monitoring of the newly formed coma and tails, which allowed researchers to learn a lot about the impact's effects.

Using Unistellar's App-Based Interface as a network, the team observed, captured, and delivered data of the impact live in real time (the only team to do so) from the Unistellar Citizen Science Team members on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and in Kenya.

Moreover, the team discovered that the rocks appeared to become significantly redder immediately after the spacecraft hit, which researchers have yet to explain.

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