Bored? Help NASA find a planet (No special skills needed; 19,000 volunteers are on the hunt)

Are you a “citizen scientist?”

Yes, you are — you just don’t know it yet.

Have some free time?

If you’re reading this then, yes, you do.

Then why not help NASA discover a new planet, one that might be hiding within our own solar system.

As National Public Radio’s Joe Palca reported, astronomers are looking for “citizen scientists” to scan images taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope in hopes of finding a theoretical planet it may have photographed.

All you need are a computer, keen eyesight — corrected vision is fine, of course — and an eye for detail. Patience helps, too.

Search online for Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, or go to zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9 to sign up and start scanning images.

The Backyard Worlds team of researchers is headed by Marc Kuchner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The project, which seeks to find Planet 9 — a world some astronomers theorize might exist at the edge of the solar system — and new brown dwarf stars, has more than 19,000 registered volunteers and is 49 percent complete.

What are you waiting for?

This story was originally published February 21, 2017 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Bored? Help NASA find a planet (No special skills needed; 19,000 volunteers are on the hunt)."