Look, there’s no doubt that the kind of people who would watch a stargazing show on the ABC are special kinds of people. I am already conjuring up a powerful, crisp mental image of a retired baby boomer named Graham.
Well, they’re more special than we knew. More than 10,000 amateur astronomers logged on as part of the Stargazing Live event to help sift through the shitloads of data from NASA‘s Kepler telescope. And, well, they discovered four new planets clustered tightly around a yellow star – a discovery which scientists say “has profound implications for understanding the history of our own Earth.”
#BREAKING: Stargazing Live viewers find four-planet solar system via crowd-sourcing project https://t.co/yIMEvPPRJC pic.twitter.com/BpJZcH7Van
— ABC News (@abcnews) April 6, 2017
Not bad for an evening of looking at pics of stars online. One of the people who discovered the new planets was a mechanic from Darwin named Andrew Grey. “The first night I jumped on I believe it was about until 12:30. I catalogued 1,000 on the first night, so I punched a few out,” he told Stargazing Live after the announcement of the find.
Punched a few out. Legend. Grey, along with three other people, will be listed as co-authors on a scientific paper about the discovery. When told he would be listed, Grey was pretty chuffed. “That is amazing. Definitely my first scientific publication.”
Scientists are currently trying to contact all the discoverers of the new solar system.
Source: ABC.
Photo: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
