Join our August Exoplanet Citizen Science Campaign!

Get to know August’s Roundup of Exoplanets

Join us this month to observe exoplanet candidates across the world! All of them are potential “Hot Jupiters,” a commonly found type of exoplanet. They have the properties of gas giants, but orbit very close to their stars, giving them extreme surface/atmosphere temperatures. They also orbit around their star very quickly – in some cases, less than 1 day!

This month’s exoplanet candidates were discovered recently by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), NASA’s current exoplanet finding mission. Exoplanet candidates are potential planets outside our solar system that have been discovered by a telescope, but not yet definitively proven to be a planet. Data from Unistellar citizen astronomers’ observations can help confirm these as real planets!

These potential Hot Jupiters orbit stars that are slightly smaller, cooler, and dimmer than our Sun, located 500 to 1,500 light years away from us. The cooler the star, the more likely that its Hot Jupiter planet will be close enough to interact with neighboring habitable Earth-like planets, if they exist. That’s why studying these Hot Jupiters is particularly important to astronomers:

TOI 3612.01: Visible Aug. 2 (Japan); 7, 10, 13, and 16 (Hawaii); 9 (Europe); 13, 25, and 28 (North America)
TOI 3514.01: Aug. 2 (Europe); 16, 25, and 28 (Japan); 26, 29 (North America); 2, 29 (South America); 13, 16, and 25 (Southeast Asia, Oceania)
TOI 3595.01: Aug. 3 (Europe); 8, 19 (North America); 26 (Hawaii)
TOI 3693.01: Aug. 6, 15 (North America)
TOI 3604.01: Aug. 10, 11 (North America)
TOI 4059.01: Aug. 11, 13, and 15 (Europe); 23, 25, 27, and 29 (North America)
TOI 3937.01: Aug. 12 (Japan)
TOI 4145.01: Aug. 23, 27 (Europe)
TOI 3922.01: Aug. 27 (North America)