Citizen scientists help create 3D map of local stellar neighborhood

[Roger E. Moore]

Is our solar system located in a typical Milky Way neighborhood? Scientists have gotten closer to answering this question, thanks to the NASA-funded Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, a "citizen science" collaboration between professional scientists and members of the public. Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of 150,000 volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to find new examples of brown dwarfs.

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/C...rhood_999.html

[Copernicus]

Is our solar system located in a typical Milky Way neighborhood? Scientists have gotten closer to answering this question, thanks to the NASA-funded Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, a "citizen science" collaboration between professional scientists and members of the public. Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of 150,000 volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to find new examples of brown dwarfs.

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/C...rhood_999.html

Are these people actually looking for brown dwarfs or are we using their computer power and they are just donating computer power. It is not clear to me.

[publiusr]

I think there are glass or Lexan cubes with bubbles in them representing the positions of local stars, maybe galaxies would be a next step.