{"id":974,"date":"2021-06-24T12:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T12:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/?p=974"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:37:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:37:28","slug":"congratulations-to-sarah-casewell-and-the-backyard-worlds-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/2021\/06\/24\/congratulations-to-sarah-casewell-and-the-backyard-worlds-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to Sarah Casewell and the Backyard Worlds Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Enormous congratulations to the Backyard Worlds Team, including Leicester scientist Dr. Sarah Casewell, on being the 2021 recipients of a <a href=\"https:\/\/science.gsfc.nasa.gov\/sci\/awards\">Robert H Goddard<\/a> award for science.  <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><br>The citation reads:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>For outstanding contributions to the study of brown dwarfs and the solar neighborhood, and an exceptional demonstration of the power of citizen science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spacecentre.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Planet_nine_artistic_plain_thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"403\" height=\"403\" \/><figcaption>Artist\u2019s impression of Planet Nine, with the Sun and Neptune\u2019s orbit in the distance. Credit: nagualdesign, Tom Ruen, ESO<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Dr. Casewell is the only European member of this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/projects\/marckuchner\/backyard-worlds-planet-9\/about\/team\">Zooniverse project for Backyard Worlds<\/a>.  In 2020 Sarah provided a <a href=\"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/2020\/01\/05\/hunting-for-planet-9\/\">blog post<\/a> for us describing this world-leading citizen science project:<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2017\/nasa-funded-website-lets-public-search-for-new-nearby-worlds\" target=\"_blank\">Backyard Worlds: Planet 9<\/a>&nbsp;is a citizen science project that has created \u201cflipbooks\u201d of these images that anyone can look through to help flag moving objects. The dwarf planet Pluto was discovered via a very similar technique to this. Clyde Tombaugh used a device called a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/airandspace.si.edu\/stories\/editorial\/finding-pluto-blink-comparator\">blink comparator<\/a>\u201d to search for objects that moved between photographs of the night sky taken days apart. He spotted Pluto after about 7000 hours of searching!  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/projects\/marckuchner\/backyard-worlds-planet-9\">By joining the&nbsp;Backyard Worlds citizen science project<\/a>, you can help search for the mysterious Planet 9 from home. Working alongside professional astronomers to search images from NASA\u2019s WISE database for nearby fast moving objects, you might discover a rogue world between us and Proxima Centuri \u2013 or even the elusive Planet 9.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><br><br>As of today, the project has been going for 4 years and they have 14 published papers (2 more submitted) and over 150,000 volunteers have helped the team search for new brown dwarfs and planet 9!<br><br><strong>To get involved, check out\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/projects\/marckuchner\/backyard-worlds-planet-9\" target=\"_blank\">backyardworlds.org<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enormous congratulations to the Backyard Worlds Team, including Leicester scientist Dr. Sarah Casewell, on being the 2021 recipients of a Robert H Goddard award for science. The citation reads: For outstanding contributions to the study of brown dwarfs and the solar neighborhood, and an exceptional demonstration of the power of citizen science. Dr. Casewell is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astro","category-awards","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}