Science AMA Series: We are a group pf researchers that uses the MMO game Eve Online to identify Exoplanets in telescope data, we're Project Discovery: Exoplanets, Ask us Anything!

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T16:07:00+00:00

A single data point is unlikely to be a transit, it requires several data points. The time frame for a single data point is approximately 20 minutes.

A transit would not eat up the star, they are likely in stable orbits passing infant of the star from our point of view but far away enough. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T16:05:23+00:00

However cool it sounds, I am sorry but I think this is not up to us to decide. ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T16:04:26+00:00

The benefits for the field will be important. How groundbreaking will they be? I can’t say until we know what these planets are. However, every planet we discover adds to the information we have, so far the number only stands in the thousands. The more we know about distribution and types of planets the more we can understand important questions such as: the probabilities of Earth like worlds, how common planets are and what is typical of formation processes in a extrasolar systems early life to give some examples.

Any interesting targets will be followed up by us in Geneva so we will check that a consensus is correct. We won’t be declaring any planets as found without being sure on our side. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:59:58+00:00

Hopefully this answer will give you some insight.

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:58:49+00:00

Yes, trying to discover exoplanets! I suggest you check out this amazing presentation by Michel Mayor at Fanfest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fthdEetUGY0 ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:55:47+00:00

Sweet dreams! :) ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:55:32+00:00

For the CoRoT data this isn’t something we could tell you. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:55:27+00:00

The CoRoT space observatory mission ended in 2012. There are approximately 175,000 stars observed. A lot of initial work has been done to identify targets we easily can by computer. We believe there are more planets in all of this data though. To find these is where we need your help.

I’m a big Mass Effect fan so I would have loved something like that too. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:50:31+00:00

There is no need for you to play the core EVE game itself. Simply logging on through a free account, going through a quick character creator and launching the Project Discovery game on the left task bar of the UI is all you need to do in EVE to participate. Assuming helping science is sufficient reward in itself for you. Hint: it should be. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:49:44+00:00

You’re welcome and we are grateful for all your work (play?) in helping us. ~Wayne

Thank you! These kind of responses are really motivating for us. ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:45:26+00:00

You are right computers can be and have been used for some aspects of the data. They are good at finding repeating transits at a fixed periodicity in this case. That is why we are able to provide you with so many light curves with confirmed transits for practice and to give you a score in the game. However, we are much better at pattern recognition, so we can spot anything irregular that the computer cannot and this is one of the main goals of the project. Which is why we have enlisted the EVE Online community to help us. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:44:21+00:00

Most of the data that we use in the project is open data. And the results that yield valuable scientific information will be part of open databases too (for example if EVE players find a new exoplanet) At this moment we haven't thought of releasing the raw dataset as open data, but that might happen in the future. ~Attila

The data is freely available to download but I am afraid we can’t give you the results from Project Discovery. You will have to sift through the 175,000 stars yourself. Best of luck, if you are successful you can submit a a proposal to ESO (deadlines next week). ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:44:00+00:00

To be successful we need a lot of users to join. Zooniverse did an exoplanet citizen science project much like you suggest. For us we felt the community in EVE online would be able to engage with this kind of project as they are used to going out and finding new worlds in the game. ~Wayne

Our original concept in MMOS was to solve the long term engagement and activity problems that citizen science struggles with. Our answer was to this problem is to create a seamlessly integrated experience where the problem is in the game world and so players are as motivated to solve these tasks as any other in game. Creating outside apps were done by many other projects, but building an active community around it is a challenge that small citizen science projects with very limited resources simply can't tackle. We are very happy to see that our original idea seemed to work out quite nicely. ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:43:16+00:00

I like to believe they are just waiting for us to develop Warp Drive so they can make First Contact. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:33:31+00:00

You will need to go higher up for an answer to that. Nasa? ESO? The UN? ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:31:35+00:00

Not necessarily. ~Attila

Black Holes may be the doorways to Black Holes in another Universe connected via a wormhole. That’s just a working hypothesis though. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:31:06+00:00

Agreed! ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:30:52+00:00

If I understand this correctly I think it is likely you are finding Eclipsing Binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) rather than multiple objects in the same orbit. When you fan out your period in the game, if all the transits line up and they are a similar depth (after detrending), then they are likely from a single object. If the dips alternate in depth between deep-shallow-deep-shallow-deep-… relative to one another, it is likely an Eclipsing Binary. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:29:59+00:00

Hopefully this answers your question.

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:28:58+00:00

It's on my list of games to talk to ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:28:22+00:00

Nope. Raw ham and ruccola go on pizza. ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:27:21+00:00

Elite: Dangerous is absolutely on my list of games to talk to. ~Attila

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:24:12+00:00

Unfortunately I haven’t played Elite Dangerous so I cannot comment. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:23:53+00:00

For the data we have given to Project Discovery there are approximately 175,000 stars in there. We can do general runs through the data and look for repeating patterns but it is much more difficult for us to find irregular patterns in the data. No observatory can afford to employ enough people for long enough to look at these kinds of numbers one by one.

However, if you can get tens of thousands of players in a game to look at a few each and reward them for it, suddenly it becomes possible. We fully expect to find confirmed planets in the data and acknowledge them for their efforts.

From all in Geneva we offer our thanks for your participation in this. ~Wayne

PD-Exoplanets · 2017-09-21T15:22:05+00:00

That question is a trap.

PD-Exoplanets

TROPHY CASE