a directory of ways to participate in space exploration
Created or know of a participatory space project? Submit a new Project
A project where you can help create a better understanding of how the Milky Way evolves over time and potentially make new unexpected scientific discoveries. The Milky Way Project aims to sort and measure our galaxy and the characteristics of its cold, dusty material that is so important to creating stars.
Help search for life on another planet by analyzing potential alien signals coming from within our galaxy. SETILive is taking the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) directly to you by presenting radio frequency signals LIVE from the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) while it’s pointed at stars…
Help discover new exoplanets (aka extrasolar planets/planets orbiting other stars) by exploring space telescope data from NASA’s Kepler mission. Planet Hunters is an online experiment that taps into the power of human pattern recognition. The data consists of brightness measurements, or “light curves”, taken…
To understand different types of galaxies and how galaxies form, Galaxy Zoo: Hubble needs your help classifying images of hundreds of thousands of galaxies taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. If you’re quick, you may even be the first person in history to see each of the galaxies you’re asked to classify.
Epsilon Aurigae is a supergiant star located 2,000 light years from Earth that mysteriously gets eclipsed every 27.1 years by an equally large unknown dark object. The event has baffled scientists since 1821, but through the Citizen Sky project, you’ll make observations and analyses that could decipher this scientific puzzle!
A citizen science project around classifying high resolution images of craters and various parts of the lunar surface taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) via the Planetary Data System (PDS). From billion-year-old volcanic eruptions and curving lava channels to recent asteroid impacts, the images you…
Learn how to spot solar explosions and track them across space to Earth. Your work could make a new scientific discovery as well as give astronauts an early warning if dangerous radiation is headed their way. You’ll also find out how to pinpoint comets, particle strikes and optical effects, and how to make…
Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@Home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth. Nestled within the Stardust spacecraft’s capsule in 2006 were precious particles collected during its dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 and something else, even rarer and no…
A project that allows individuals or groups to dedicate some portion of their time to analyzing data taken with other people’s telescopes. The Global Telescope Network is a network of small telescopes around the world for the purpose of supporting the science of NASA and ESA high energy astrophysics missions…
Help NASA get astronauts to the Moon and Mars. Future space exploration will challenge NASA to answer many critical questions about how humans can live and work for extended missions away from Earth. Currently, researchers are working to reduce the effects of space flight on the human body. To accomplish this…
A virtual laboratory for scientists and engineers to disseminate results and collaborate on research problems in health management technologies for aeronautics systems. DASHlink (Discovery in Aeronautics Systems Health) supports innovation by allowing researchers to overcome the limitations…
The PlanetQuest Collaboratory will turn your computer (Mac, PC, Linux, and others) into a virtual astronomical observatory that you can use to make and share real scientific discoveries. Our telescopes are focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius, and when an observing run…
setiQuest is a community involvement led by the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute that aims to lead to a significant improvement in the ability to search for other intelligent civilizations in the cosmos. You can participate as a software developer or creative data parser.
Be an astronaut on a mission to Mars for four months! A research program is seeking participants for a simulated Mars mission, taking place in 2013 in Hawaii. The Hawaii Mars Analogue Mission and Food Study is designed to simulate the living, eating and working experience of astronauts on a real planetary mission.
Help scientists search for landforms and identify new places to take pictures on Mars. The HiRISE camera, one of the instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has been sending back high-resolution images of Mars since late 2006.
Contribute to the scientific understanding of the surfaces of solar system bodies. Surface features help astronomers learn more about solar system bodies. Developing the critical eye needed to identify and measure surface features in images takes a considerable amount of practice. Clickworkers offers you the opporunity to fine-tune your skills.
A NASA mission to search for water on the moon needs help from citizen scientists with 10-12″ aperture telescopes to observe a lunar impact in early October. The project is actively asking for you to send in your images of the impact.These images will provide a valuable addition to the archive of data chronicling the impact and its aftermath.