* Astronomy

Astrophysicist Laurance Doyle wants to get the world discovering worlds--and in the process get children jazzed about science and math.
Doyle and his team at non-profit PlanetQuest have developed software to harness the computing power of millions of users computers and help people discover new planets and stars.
The yet-to-be-released software is grounded in an already widely deployed experiment in distributed computing, the SETI@Home program.
SETI@Home allows desktop and workstation users to contribute computer processing time to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
It will give people a real chance to find and name their own planet or star. Only 1 percent of the stars in the galaxy have been classified or looked at in-depth, and there's roughly a one in a 5,000 to 10,000 chance that people will find one.



PlanetQuest's software, which is a screensaver download that runs during off times of computer usage, contains models of all the different star types and planets that exist. It will absorb data from remote telescopes, such as the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is expected to be complete by 2012 , and download observations on the stars' brightness and the algorithms to match stars and planets.
The program analyzes light curves to see what kind of star it is--there are about 147 basic types. The user's computer does the calculations, and if a match occurs, it will send an alert of a new discovery.

PlanetQuest's software draws partially on a planet detection method Doyle helped develop that was the basis for NASA's Kepler Mission, a $500 million space project to search for habitable planets. The technique, called the transit method, looks to a planet to orbit in front of its parent star. The light drops off, and the star "winks" at you. If the transit is repeatable, then it can be a method for discovering and confirming planets even smaller than Earth. But the wink can be tricky: A star can also wink if it has a spot on it or if there are different coloured stars set in the atmosphere.
PlanetQuest will acquire its data from as many as six telescopes by its launch. The software is expected to be in its test phase by December. It uses the Crossley 0.9-meter telescope at the University of California's Lick Observatory and the Siding Spring 1-meter telescope in Coonabarabran, Australia. The company also recently received $20 million in support in the form of telescope time from Dill Faulkes, a British entrepreneur who has set up two fully robotic telescopes on the island of Maui and at the Siding Spring Observatory.
PlanetQuest calls its software a "collaboratory," in which people collaborate within astronomy and mathematics to find new planets or stars, as well as with others looking at the same matter. Eventually, the company plans to insert RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, feeds announcing new discoveries among its members.

During its initial test phase, it will allow only 50,000 people to install the software, given the limits on its resources. But eventually it aims to host a community of 20 million, according to its founders.

Eventually, the non-profit hopes to offer an enhanced version of the software for a fee so the project can be self-sustaining. And with any luck, if it hits a billion users, PlanetQuest hopes to fund its own Kepler Mission.

http://www.planetquest.org/download/