TOI-2180 b, a large gassy planet 379 light-years from Earth following a star the size of the Sun, has been discovered by a citizen scientist.
Tom Jacobs, a retired US military officer from Bellevue, Washington, who found the said planet, has joined online volunteer programs that allow citizen scientists to seek indications of exoplanets using NASA's telescope since 2010.
Jacobs identified TOI-2180 b, which is somewhat further away from its star than Venus is from the Sun. It took massive teamwork between citizen scientists like Jacobs and professional astronomers to discover this planet and pin down its size and mass.
According to NASA, they used "a worldwide united effort" to follow the planet. Paul Dalba, principal author of the research and an astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, said in the same NASA report that they need to go after it together to maintain eyes on this specific planet.
Jacobs said that discovering and publishing TOI-2180 b was a fantastic team effort demonstrating how professional astronomers and veteran citizen scientists can collaborate successfully. It's the epitome of synergy, he added.
Did you know that you can help NASA spot planets around distant stars?
— NASA (@NASA) January 14, 2022
Volunteer citizen scientists are uncovering exoplanets like this Jupiter-sized gas giant—here's how you can sign up to @DoNASAScience: https://t.co/8MKoS80l3O pic.twitter.com/L4We4xyBWh
About TOI-2180 b
According to Space.com, TOI-2180 b has thrice the mass of Jupiter but has the same diameter. It led astronomers to speculate that this dense exoplanet may have developed differently from Jupiter.
What's within the planet might perhaps reveal anything about its creation. Scientists projected that the new exoplanet might have up to 105 Earth masses of elements heavier than helium and hydrogen. They based their claim on the computer estimates.
TOI-2180 b is warmer than room temperature on Earth and the outer planets of our solar system, including Jupiter and Saturn, with an average temperature of roughly 170 degrees Fahrenheit. TOI-2180 b is unusually cold compared to the array of transiting massive exoplanets discovered circling other stars by scientists.
This illustration depicts a Jupiter-like exoplanet called TOI-2180 b. It was discovered in data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
How Citizen Scientists Found TOI-2180 b
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) identified the newly found planet's signal. Scientists use TESS data to seek fluctuations in the brightness of neighboring stars that might suggest the presence of planets circling them.
Jacobs is one of those citizen scientists seeking new planets by analyzing TESS data plots that illustrate how a star's brightness changes over time. These citizen scientists used Alan R. Schmitt's LcTools to review telescope data by hand. Professional astronomers, meanwhile, use algorithms to examine tens of thousands of data points from stars automatically,
Researchers detailed their study, "The Tess-Keck Survey. VIII. Confirmation of a Transiting Giant Planet on an Eccentric 261 Day Orbit With the Automated Planet Finder Telescope*," in the Astronomical Journal.
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