SETI Institute + Unistellar Citizen Science
UNITE
Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets
A NASA Citizen Science project
Use Your Telescope To Confirm The Existence Of Newly Discovered Worlds
Join the worldwide Unistellar Network of citizen scientists and professional astronomers to discover and characterize some of the most interesting exoplanets in our galaxy!
Giant exoplanets resembling Jupiter that have been recently discovered by TESS, NASA’s current exoplanet hunting mission, need your help. Astronomers don’t have enough information to fully understand the orbits of these planets, which take months or years to circle their star once. This is usually because TESS and other telescopes haven’t had many chances to catch the temporary dimming of the exoplanet’s star as the planet passes, or transits, in front it.
This is where you and UNITE come in! Only a network of people around the world, cooperating to observe the same target, will be able to catch more transits by these exoplanets.
This can be because these planets take many hours to transit their star (much longer than a single night on Earth) or because the dates of future transits cannot yet be accurately predicted. With your observations, scientists can understand the orbits and conditions of these foreign worlds like never before.
Explore below to learn about exoplanets or get started tonight!
Don’t have a Unistellar telescope? Here’s how you can still be part of the UNITE mission.
Learn About Exoplanets
Get Started
Pick Your Target
Results
Featured Exoplanet Transit for August 2024
UPTEMPO target: TIC 459280861.01
Left: A comparison of the planet candidate TIC 495280861.01 to other planets in our solar system, assuming what we know so far about this potential planet to be correct! Right: The UNISTELLAR Network’s first observation of this target on July 25th, which indicates a potential transit.
Observation dates: August 17-18 UTC
Visibility: Europe, Africa, and South America
We need your help confirming the presence of an exoplanet!
Announcing a new UNITE program! UPTEMPO: Unistellar Pursuing TESS Exoplanet Markers Previously Overlooked (UPTEMPO).
For our UPTEMPO targets, we will be looking at stars that TESS observed and saw potential transits for in more than on sector. However, these were overlooked by the various processes that flag TESS targets as planet candidates. So it is up to us to investigate whether a gas giant planet is truly lurking around these stars.
UNITE’s first UPTEMPO target is the TIC 459180861 system. This target has been observed in three TESS sectors, and appears to possibly have a planet (TIC 459280861.01) causing a grazing transit signature, where the planet passes in front of its star near the edge of the star’s disk. According to TESS data, this planet — if it exists — should have a period of ~8 days. On July 25th, the UNISTELLAR network took its first attempt at catching this transit, and it appears as if we detected a transit signal! This planet should transit again on August 17th UTC, so we can now confirm its existence and orbit by observing it again!
Featured Result: TOI 1812.01
Despite having two transits observed by TESS, its period (the length of its year) was poorly known: previous estimates ranged from 71 – 157 days.
To nail down the orbit, 20 Citizen Astronomers tracked TOI 1812.01 for three nights over the course of two months. Only on the third night, August 27, did they spot the exoplanet and confirm that it takes 112 days to orbit its star.
Meet the Team
Meet the SETI Institute scientists behind the Unistellar Network’s NASA-Sponsored Exoplanet Programs:
Tom Esposito, PhD – UNITE Principal Investigator, Pipeline Development
Lauren Sgro, PhD – Exoplanets Lead, Observation Planning, Data Analysis, Communications
Franck Marchis, PhD – Outreach, Communications
Previous contributors – Dr. Paul Dalba, Dr. Daniel Peluso