Slashdot Mirror
How a Guy Found 4 New Planets Without a Telescope
An anonymous reader writes "Peter Jalowiczor is a gas worker from South Yorkshire, England. He's also the discoverer of four giant exoplanets, according to the University of California's Lick-Carnegie Planet Search Team. But he's not an astronomer and he doesn't even have a telescope. '...in 2005, astronomers at the university released millions of space measurements collected over several decades and asked enthusiasts to make of them what they would. ... From March 2007 Peter, 45, spent entire nights reading the data, working the figures, creating graphs. ... He then sent discrepancies he discovered back to the scientists in California where they were further analyzed to see if the quirks were caused by the existence of an exoplanet.'"
As an amateur astronomer I think the general mindset is that one cannot make a discovery of any significance without owning cutting edge hardware. Telescopes produce such mind-bending quantities of data that there is much opportunity for someone with some patience and an inquiring mind to add to the knowledge-base.
Surely also a brilliant argument of the power of publicly available data.
... there was a telescope, just not one he owned....
He's been using "other people's telescopes" so to speak.
This is nothing new -- in fact, most astronomers work just like him - they use observations made by their colleagues.
The astronomers who actually do observations are fewer than the people who do astronomy, mostly because observing requires a whole lot of skills on top of astronomy knowledge.
Unusual slashdot posting, in that there seems little to ridicule in anything or anyone about the event. Good for him, I'm glad his efforts paid off in these discoveries. I think he distinguished himself in his persistence and ability to keep at it when many others might have seen the effort as futile for so many reasons.
This guy is clearly a gas giant rather than everyday normal gas worker.
It says that he 'read data' and 'created graphs'. Couldn't whatever he was doing be automated? I'm sure that astronomers are already automating a whole lot of data analyzation, but for a random guy to find 4 irregularities, seems strange. Maybe high level pattern recognition is vital to the process he used? Get this guy, or somebody to start writing code.
Hi, it looks like you've been spending a lot of time on a wiki. Might I suggest some Jimbo.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Actually if you want to see a planet you should really be looking down, not up.
I'm guessing "Gas worker" is short for "Chemical Engineer.".
...please don't annihilate the fucking world.
Thanks.
I don't know if you know this, but pretty much all discoveries in the last hundred years have been made with math. Astronomy especially so.
It is pretty clear that you don't understand the fact that there are only so many scientists in the world, and these discoveries require people pouring over data for extended periods of time. Science is not a glorious profession, and it doesn't pay well. That means there aren't that many scientists doing all the works of science. It's not like there are millions of professional astronomers out there - at best there are a few thousand. Any time you can enlist the help the public to go through the tedious analysis tasks you are better off, especially if you happen to snag a guy who has two science degrees under his belt. Just because he doesn't do science for a living doesn't mean he wasn't trained as a scientist.
I'm honestly quite flabbergasted by your attitude. If Einstein were an astronomer instead of a theoretical physicist, how exactly would you expect him to discover new planets with just pencils, paper, and a waste basket?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Kathryn Gray, a 10 year old girl from New Brunswick, Canada, discovered a previously unknown SuperNova over the Christmas holidays. Neither Kathryn nor her dad own a telescope. They used images downloaded to her dad's computer, an astronomy buff. The images were taken via a backyard telescope owned by another amateur, David Lane of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada).
Zooniverse has recently launched a new project using data from Kepler. You can create a profile at Planet Hunters and look for planet transits. IMO it's the most exciting project they've launched. Sure you're not naming the planets, but you are aiding the search.
"and these discoveries require people pouring over data for extended periods of time."
Well, only if the data is from the Big Dipper.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/