DISK DETECTIVE: DISCOVERY OF NEW CIRCUMSTELLAR DISK CANDIDATES THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE

Journal Article · Thu Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/84· OSTI ID:22667332

Kuchner, Marc J.; McElwain, Michael; Padgett, Deborah L. ^[1]; Silverberg, Steven M.; Wisniewski, John P. ^[2]; Bans, Alissa S. ^[3]; Bhattacharjee, Shambo ^[4]; Kenyon, Scott J. ^[5]; Debes, John H. ^[6]; Currie, Thayne ^[7]; García, Luciano ^[8]; Jung, Dawoon ^[9]; Lintott, Chris ^[10]; Rebull, Luisa M. ^[11]; Nesvold, Erika ^[12]; others, and

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1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, Code 667 Greenbelt, MD 21230 (United States)
2. Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy The University of Oklahoma 440 W. Brooks St. Norman, OK 73019 (United States)
3. Valparaiso University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Neils Science Center, 1610 Campus Drive East, Valparaiso, IN 46383 (United States)
4. International Space University 1 Rue Jean-Dominique Cassini F-67400 Illkirch-Graffenstaden (France)
5. Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 60 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
6. Space Telescope Science Institute 3700 San Martin Dr. Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
7. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 650 N A’ohokhu Place Hilo, HI 96720 (United States)
8. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Laprida 854, X5000BGR, Córdoba (Argentina)
9. Korea Aerospace Research Institute Lunar Exploration Program Office 169-84 Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34133 (Korea, Republic of)
10. Denys Wilkinson Building Keble Road Oxford, OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)
11. Infrared Processing and Analaysis Center Caltech M/S 314-6 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
12. Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015-1305 (United States)

The Disk Detective citizen science project aims to find new stars with 22 μ m excess emission from circumstellar dust using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer ( WISE ) mission. Initial cuts on the AllWISE catalog provide an input catalog of 277,686 sources. Volunteers then view images of each source online in 10 different bands to identify false positives (galaxies, interstellar matter, image artifacts, etc.). Sources that survive this online vetting are followed up with spectroscopy on the FLWO Tillinghast telescope. This approach should allow us to unleash the full potential of WISE for finding new debris disks and protoplanetary disks. We announce a first list of 37 new disk candidates discovered by the project, and we describe our vetting and follow-up process. One of these systems appears to contain the first debris disk discovered around a star with a white dwarf companion: HD 74389. We also report four newly discovered classical Be stars (HD 6612, HD 7406, HD 164137, and HD 218546) and a new detection of 22 μ m excess around the previously known debris disk host star HD 22128.

• OSTI ID: 22667332
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 830, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COSMIC DUST
DATA ANALYSIS
DETECTION
EMISSION
GALAXIES
IMAGES
INFRARED SURVEYS
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
PROTOPLANETS
SPECTROSCOPY
TELESCOPES
WHITE DWARF STARS