WHERE DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS RESIDE? HOW DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS DIFFER THAT ORBIT STARS OF DIFFERENT MASSES? HOW DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS CHANGE AS THEIR HOST STARS EVOLVE? INFRARED SURVEYS OFFER ANSWERS TO…

This $104,996.00 grant was awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Oklahoma to support the "Disk Detective: Finding Circumstellar Disks with WISE and 100,000 New Colleagues" project. The goal of this effort is to leverage the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) archive to identify new circumstellar disks, which provide insights into star and planet formation processes. The project will utilize a citizen science approach through the Disk Detective website, allowing volunteers to visually examine WISE, 2MASS, and optical survey data to identify disk candidates that may have been overlooked by professional researchers. This work is expected to yield hundreds of new debris disk candidates and thousands of protoplanetary disk candidates for further study, complementing upcoming observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. The grant does not have a set-aside designation.

WHERE DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS RESIDE? HOW DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS DIFFER THAT ORBIT STARS OF DIFFERENT MASSES? HOW DO PLANETARY SYSTEMS CHANGE AS THEIR HOST STARS EVOLVE? INFRARED SURVEYS OFFER ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS BY FINDING AND MEASURING DEBRIS DISKS AND YSO (YOUNG STELLAR OBJECT) DISKS. THESE DISKS, IN TURN, TEACH US ABOUT THE TIMESCALES OF STAR AND PLANET FORMATION (E.G. STROM ET AL. 1989), THE DYNAMICS OF PLANETARY SYSTEMS (E.G. KUCHNER & HOLMAN 2003), AND HELP US FIND DIRECTLY IMAGED PLANETS (E.G. MAROIS ET AL. 2008). WITH ITS SENSITIVITY TO DEBRIS DISKS AROUND MAIN SEQUENCE A STARS TO 300 PC AND PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AROUND T TAURI STARS TO 1 KPC, THE NASAS WIDE-FIELD INFRARED SURVEY EXPLORER (WISE) DETECTED MANY NEW DISKS AMONG THE>747 MILLION SOURCES IN ITS ALL SKY SURVEY ARCHIVE. INDEED, MANY TEAMS HAVE COMBED THE WISE ARCHIVE FOR CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS, DISCOVERING THOUSANDS OF CANDIDATE DEBRIS DISKS AND YSO DISKS. FOR EXAMPLE, THANKS TO THE SENSITIVITY OF WISE DATA AT 12 AND 22μM, THE NUMBER OF KNOWN WARM DEBRIS DISKS NOW EXCEEDS THE NUMBER OF KNOWN COLD DEBRIS DISKS, EVEN THOUGH THE LATTER ARE MORE PREVALENT OVERALL (PATEL ET AL 2014). THE WISE ARCHIVE SERVES AS A CRUCIAL PRECURSOR SURVEY FOR THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE (JWST), TO BE LAUNCHED IN OCTOBER 2018. BUT THE TREASURE OF WISE DATA ON CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS REMAINS UNDERUTILIZED BECAUSE, AS SEVERAL GROUPS HAVE FOUND, EACH POTENTIAL DISK CANDIDATE MUST BE EXAMINED INDIVIDUALLY BY EYE TO CHECK FOR CONFUSION AND TO DISTINGUISH DISKS FROM GALAXIES, ARTIFACTS AND OTHER CONTAMINANTS (DEBES ET AL. 2011, KENNEDY & WYATT 2013, PATEL ET AL 2014, PADGETT ET AL. IN PREP.). THIS NECESSITY FORCES WOULD-BE DISK FINDERS TO TAKE SHORT CUTS: LIMITING THE SEARCH AREA ON THE SKY OR CROSS-CORRELATING WITH OTHER, MUCH SMALLER, CATALOGS TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF SOURCES REQUIRE INSPECTION BY EYE. THESE SHORTCUTS LEAVE VAST POPULATIONS OF SOURCES RELATIVELY UNEXAMINED. WITHOUT A NEW LARGE-SCALE SEARCH EFFORT, THOUSANDS OF POTENTIALLY IMPORTANT DISKS WILL REMAIN BURIED IN THE WISE ARCHIVE WHILE JWSTS FUEL AND CRYOGEN RUN OUT. TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS, WE HAVE LAUNCHED A NEW CITIZEN SCIENCE WEBSITE, DISKDETECTIVE.ORG. THIS WEBSITE, PART OF THE ZOONIVERSE CITIZEN SCIENCE COMMUNITY TOGETHER WITH GALAXY ZOO, PLANET HUNTERS AND MANY OTHER FLAGSHIP CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECTS (SEE HTTP://WWW.ZOONIVERSE.ORG), ENGAGES LAYPERSON VOLUNTEERS TO EXAMINE IMAGES FROM WISE, 2MASS AND OPTICAL SURVEYS TO SEARCH FOR NEW CIRCUMSTELLAR DISK CANDIDATES. THIS APPROACH WILL UNLEASH THE FULL POWER OF THE WISE ARCHIVE FOR DETECTING CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS, SEARCHING AN INPUT LIST 8X LARGER THAN ANY PUBLISHED WISE DISK SEARCH, REVEALING DISKS PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS WOULD OTHERWISE LIKELY NOT SPOT FOR MANY YEARS. WE ESTIMATE THAT DISK DETECTIVE WILL YIELD HUNDREDS OF NEW DEBRIS DISKS CANDIDATES AND THOUSANDS OF VISUALLY-VETTED YSO DISK CANDIDATES, OBJECTS THAT DEMAND FOLLOW-UP AND PRESENTATION TO THE SCIENCE COMMUNITY.