Exploring citizen science in exoplanet research with Anastasia Kokori

Welcome to Growing Worlds, the podcast where we explore the science of exoplanets through conversation with early-career researchers on the front line of discovery. I'm Lorenzo.

I'm Jenny. In each episode we meet a guest who takes us behind the science of planets, stars and the people who make this research possible.

Today we are talking about a side of exoplanet science that often stands in the background but is absolutely essential, which is public involvement and citizen science, because some of the biggest space missions today rely not only on professional astronomers but on communities of people observing the sky from all over the world.

To guide us through how that works in practice, we're joined by Anastasia Cokery from the University College London. Anastasia, welcome to Growing Worlds.

Hello, I'm really glad to be in Glowing I'm happy to have this conversation today with you.

Anastasia is a PhD candidate in exoplanetary science at the University College of London, where she works at the interface between science, coordination and public engagement. She is the coordinator of ExoClock and ExoClock Unlocked, which are international efforts to bring together professional astronomers, students and amateur observers to monitor exoplanet transits and keep the orbital timing up to date.

Our listeners might remember that we mentioned ExoClock before, with my yuko a few episodes ago. It was episode 4, if you are curious to listen back. So, Anastasia's work with ExoClock plays a crucial role in supporting future missions like Ariel, where knowing exactly when a planet will transit makes the difference between a successful observation and a missed opportunity.

So Anastasia, we always like to start from the beginning. So tell us about

Yeah

your beginning, your journey into exoplanet science. How did it begin? What got you excited about exoplanets? And then how did you get into the kind of public engagement side of it?

It's very actually interesting how I started into exoplanets because I wasn't always a professional astronomer. I started as a teacher. So I got introduced actually into astronomy through my studies, my bachelor's studies in primary education. I'm always mentioning this because it's a quite different background compared to other probably researchers or researchers in astronomy. This is where actually I got into astronomy because I had a professor who wanted to teach teachers how to teach astronomy to students. So he really inspired me. It was exactly.

I love that someone out there is doing that. That's a worthy cause, yeah.

We were, think, only department in the country, because I studied in Greece, that had this opportunity. So indeed, for me, was a life-changing and career-changing opportunity and inspiration, because it was also my first course. So as soon as I entered the university, I entered in the amphitheatre and I was like, what am doing here? What am hearing about stars, planets?

I got to study pedagogy and education.

Mm.

But I think the combination of the two offered me this enriched background in both astronomy and education.

This is how I got first the inspiration of astronomy and then I decided to follow the career. But exoplanets, I think, came as a really innovative field back then because when I was studying, it was like 10, 15 years ago, exoplanets were really growing and started to become one of the most interesting fields.

Yeah, I think what, 10 years ago is that when we're launching Kepler? Something like 10 years ago, isn't it? Roughly speaking, it's about a decade ago? Yeah. Okay, 15 years ago for Kepler.

15 years ago. Yes.

Yeah, little father, yeah.

Yeah, so it's like, yeah, at the start of where the numbers just shoot up.

Yeah, exactly.

It's time to grow.

So I was really in that era when we were provided with discoveries by Kepler. So for me, was really super curious to find out what is going on. I was always the person related to more of what other planets look like, if they exist, if we can find life there. So, know, all the related questions to this. And actually, the field has grown so much that now we can talk even about more things.

And so you did this course when you were teaching, so from that did you go and do like a masters or did you go straight

Yeah.

into the PhD or?

No, I had a long way to go.

haha

So I did a master's in science communication in Ireland because I had really a lot of passion for communicating astronomy. So I found about astronomy communication and in general how we can communicate science to the public, the importance. And my professors were like, we think you should better for this rather than astronomy research.

Well, I followed

Hmm.

their advice. I went for the Masters. I really had a great background on that because we will talk about it, why it is important and how it connects society with science and all these things. But then this was still not enough for me. I wanted to have a really grounded foundation knowledge of astronomy. So this

Mm.

is where I decided to do another bachelor's. So it was quite...

wow, okay.

Okay.

long. So this is when I did a bachelor's from zero in astronomy and planetary

Yeah.

science and then finally getting into a PhD. So I think I consider myself really a long life student that

Yeah.

I never never end.

I love that though, because I think it's like, you I'm a science communicator as well, but I've done like the degree in astronomy and like PhD and all of that. And I think it is so important that science communicators do have a grounding in science, in the science that they're talking about. Because I feel like, you know, that you sometimes get questions that you need to draw on that expertise for.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I think what you've done is actually super smart. I really admire it.

After being so tired, because you're saying I'm tired, I don't want any other degrees, people that have been

you

since the beginning were like, okay, enough, enough. How much

You

more do you want to do? And indeed, I realize now how important it is to, if you want to do things like what I'm doing now, connecting to the public, it's quite important to have a diverse background and a holistic view of things, yes.

Mm-hmm. I agree.

you

I'm

Your work is showing that actually the public can play a very real role in exoplanet research. You know, it's not just

Exactly.

happening with big observatories and telescopes and all of the professionals. It's the quote unquote normal people, not the people

Mm-hmm.

who are like the astronomers as their sort job title, they're doing really important work. So why is citizen science so important in exoplanet research?

So first of all, let me mention that what you said, the involvement of people started also from myself because when I started, as I said, because I was an amateur back then, I was an amateur astronomer, I wasn't back then a professional yet. This is where I found that it was really hard to find opportunities for people like me or others. Maybe they're not professionals, but they have a lot of passion for astronomy. They

Mm-hmm.

have curiosity, have the willingness to contribute, to come in touch. They have difficulties to find opportunities to get into it. So an excellent way to get into this is citizen science, where our public participation, you involve in real research with the support of professionals. You handle real data or you support with your data.

And in exoplanet science particularly, not many opportunities existed when at least I started. There were excellent opportunities, for example, in the field of galaxies with Galaxy Zoo. Let's mention Galaxy Zoo, which played a really important role. But in exoplanets, not many. So I really wanted to get this opportunity first of all for me.

and have less barriers. And this is where I started thinking like, okay, people like me would exist. Then I got into the profession and I could completely understand how a usual person would think from the

Yeah.

public. This is something I think that is really important to get into the shoes of these people, like what they want,

Mm.

what motivates them. So you asked about the role or the importance, right, of

The importance,

Yay!

yeah.

Yes. one first question that may come is why you need these people? Is it just to inspire them or get them into science? Or can we actually make use of their capabilities? Right? Because why not doing the work just us, the professionals?

Mm-hmm.

So one important thing that comes and the big answer is that many people have opportunities can contribute, they have equipment like amateur astronomers and they want to contribute instead of just observing the stars which is amazing but you have an opportunity with a small telescope to have a contribution to become important for something bigger.

Now, small telescope. What does small actually mean, right? Because like, you talk to a professional and they'll be like, yeah, it's a small telescope, it's only half a metre in diameter. So, when we say small amateur telescope, what we're talking about, and presumably

Yes, true.

you also need some kind of camera.

How small is small?

So how small? So even for exoplanets now, we have like all the evidence to show that even a very small telescope, I will be very extreme to say we have done observations with even two inch telescope, which

wow.

As I said back then, for some exoplanet transits that have quite high signals, so they're quite easily identifiable, a very small telescope can see them. Now, if we want to talk about the impact, of course...

larger telescopes can have a larger impact. So the actual average size of telescopes that we have also in our project from amateur astronomers, they start from five inches and the average I would say is eight to ten inches. So these telescopes Although they are quite small as well, they're not like 15 or 20 or 25 inches, they can have a quite significant role. So I think this became more apparent throughout the course of the project. We also

Mm-hmm.

were not sure of the capabilities, 100 percent what they can do, but we knew that they can do things. So the project was an excellent way also to quantify these capabilities. So this is what encouraged also other amateurs to join and other people to become interested because they could see that it's happening. So they're like, okay, if they can do it, I can do it.

You're not talking about X o'clock, right? What do you say the project? Which, yeah, which is I know

Yes, I'm talking about it.

it started from very small and now is a worldwide thing with hundreds of people joining, right? Maybe thousands now.

Yes. So exactly, what is interesting about the project is that formally it launched with a logo and you know everything, which also the logo was designed by a person from the public. So everything was collaboratively

Mmm.

and that was also very nice because we did everything open since the start. We didn't just launch a project and said, okay, this is it. This is what we want from you. There we go. The more opportune is people have to join in any stage of the project the more they stay connected. And this is also I think one of the biggest, if we can say, successes of the project that people could come without huge commitments, without prerequisites, not many expectations. So we were open to provide the tools, the training and people could come and go. So we have people that started from the beginning, six years, almost seven now, six and a half.

Mmm.

And still every day we see new registrants.

It's interesting how people still from the amateur society are curious to learn about exoplanets, to contribute, to become part of a community. This is what I think makes also the project even larger because we can't stop now. We can't say even if we complete the goal, it's hard to stop this community.

Yeah. So tell us exactly what happens if someone gets involved with XO clock

Mm-hmm.

and what kind of observations they're doing and then how that actually ties in with real scientific research and the sort of the importance of people getting involved and continuing to make XO clock amazing.

Yeah, since the beginning, if somebody wants to join, can first of all, click to the website, xoclock.space. They have the opportunity there to create an account. So, Even if they have no idea about exoplanets or observing, they can register to the website so they can find out more information, the training tools. So the first step is to register.

Then the most important is to see if they have a telescope. If they have a telescope they will find also a personalized scheduler where they can find out which planets they can observe from their own telescope, which is very important. Everything is guided.

Yeah. Yeah, because you know, yeah, some stuff's in the Northern Hemisphere, some stuff's in the Southern Hemisphere and it matters about the time of year and all of these things. So you think

Exactly. the timing...

about all of that for them.

Exactly. have created.

But you also think about the size of the telescopes, right?

Yeah, yeah, a smaller telescope has different capabilities from a larger one and this is quite important because if an observer has a telescope of for example 10 inches and the planet is not observable from the telescope they will know that so their scheduler will show only the planets that are possible to be observed and why this is important first of all because they don't have to waste their time because they're going to spend four, five or maybe six hours in the telescope.

Yeah.

They want to know that this is something that is going to be useful. So they 100 % know that even from the first planet they will observe, they will see something if they follow the guidelines. And secondly, it is important to have this allocation of resources because if we have a 10 inches telescope, we will give the easy targets and we will give the difficult targets, the difficult planets to a larger telescope.

So we are all happy in this way. We save time, we know what we observe, we don't have to duplicate. It's a lot of importance here and that's why open projects like the Exoclub project allow this. Everybody

And I think...

knows what others observe.

I think as well we should just confirm that when we say observe exoplanets we're not talking about direct observations. Those are the realm of sort of the James Webb Space Telescope and the like the ones Keck and

Mm-hmm.

things like that right the big telescopes. We're talking about transiting exoplanets right and looking out for those

Exactly.

dips in the light output of the parent star.

Yes, very important to mention that it's an indirect observation, but still we see the effect. So we will see this deep in the light. This is actually quite motivating and what creates a lot of happiness to observers because when they see this deep on the light and they know this is...

this exoplanet. They become very satisfied and happy that they managed to do this observation. So with such a small telescope and this planet might be so far away and at this moment they are monitoring, they're observing this. Sometimes we're called spies because we're spying these planets, whatever happens there. So yeah.

I like that. I like that, yeah. So people, so they've signed up, they've worked out which planet they're gonna look for, they set their telescope and camera up, and they take their images. Presumably are they fit files that people are doing?

Yeah, so they take their FITS files, of course, in the most observational astronomy work in this way. And then is the next step, which is the analysis, the data analysis part. So we have created a software which allows user friendly analysis of these images. So the observers are able to do this work on their own.

I love that, imagine that, taking your own pictures, use the software, get that light curve.

and doing the analysis. Yes.

that's exciting stuff.

And this is why actually it's motivating because they know that they will not just give the data, they will see the result. So I think this is quite motivating. Exactly.

Yeah, could be like, I can see the dip. Look at that dip!

It's fantastic. So you are are taking people can take pictures of the sky from their garden basically and through all your exoclock pipeline from selecting the target and then going through your data analysis software they actually produce data which are scientific level, right? Science level data from your garden. And this is also your way to I

Yes, yes, exactly.

guess to ensure the quality of your of their product, right?

Very important to mention, thank you for saying that, because usually also in several citizen science projects or collaborative projects, you will hear the concern that, okay, how can you trust the data or what about the quality? How they know if they provide you with the correct data? And they have heard that personally. So through this type of processes and protocols, first of all, for the observing part, and then for the analytical effort, you know that people have followed specific protocols, they will use your tool that you know how you created all the different defaults, and then they provide you something that is trustworthy before you also validate, because we take the results and we always pass a review process before we publish, we never publish without a review.

Yeah.

But it's important to mention that it's absolutely necessary to have common protocols and

Yeah.

use common tools to have consistency.

Yeah, to make sure that it is the quality that the professionals, their needs for their analysis. So what sort of

Yeah, exactly.

analysis is being done with the data from the like, from the citizen scientists? Are they, is it refining orbits? Is it refining like planet sizes?

Mm-hmm.

What are the scientists getting out of the data?

So this is also quite interesting because there is another question from people like what you can do with this. Okay, I see

Mmm.

it. You know it's there, but is it useful? It's super useful because first of all, most of the planets that are detected are not being observed multiple times after the observation. So as soon as we detect a planet, we don't know information about it because the most important thing was to detect it, find out if it exists. But then

Yeah.

it's really a big process and it's a marathon I would say to

Hmm.

find out more about these planets and Lorenzo you know how important it is to follow up and monitor all the planets.

yeah.

We are talking about multiple planets now, thousands. So when we

Mm.

had only a few planets, of course we could focus on this, but now that we are talking for so many, we are losing important information about this. So if we want to discuss really what these planets look like, we need multiple of these observations, which will allow us to get more in-depth information about, for example, the most important thing. Is the planet still there? Is it transiting? So

Mmm.

this is the timing. Do we know like that the timing is correct or we will lose the planet? So this

No.

is the most important thing. So monitoring them is essential first of all for this reason. Secondly we can refine other things related to the planet for example the period. How often?

this planet will transit. Is the period known in detail? Do we know it? But also many more information related to the orbits or even to other planets in the system. And this is a method also we can identify other planets. It's so much information actually that the more data we can get about one planet, the more transits, the more we can actually get information about this system.

This is fantastic. You just summarized why citizen size is so important. We have so many planets to check on, basically,

Hmm.

that we don't have enough telescopes to keep staring at all these planets. It's like

Exactly.

having, we just have too many children now and we don't have enough babysitter for all of them, right? So we're just asking the,

I like that.

we're asking the neighbors to help us checking on them. And we are all having a party altogether after all. We are offering pizzas compensate because

Yeah.

you are building up trust and connection, and you're also giving something back because you are giving people the opportunity to contribute to science, really. Because

Mmm.

I know, I happen to know that you also invite people to join your publications when you use their data. This is huge.

wow.

Yes, it's important. Since the beginning, we already observed that, noticed that there were several efforts, not necessarily in exoplanets, but I would talk about generally, that people maybe would be just acknowledged or not even mentioned. And then this is something that people may lose interest on because if they don't get all the acknowledgement or they don't feel the satisfaction of getting equally involved also in the presentation of results, they may just stop then this creates a big gap between professionals and amateurs because the professionals lead them, the amateurs want to be part, but if there is not equal involvement or acknowledgement, then as you can imagine this creates problems. So we consider that it's equally important. Of course now it becomes a problem for us because we have to handle all the

Hahaha

logistics and we are talking in the beginning it was 48 or 50 people which is still a lot but now it's 300 and yes yes yes yes yes

As an author list you're saying, the author list of your paper were like 40, 50 people. What is today?

Mmm.

Today the latest was 350, so

wow.

no.

it took us too much time to manage the logistics, the affiliations, the observatories, to make a sure...

that everybody's properly acknowledged. this is something probably that we should also mention to journals or collective efforts that it should make our life easier if we want this type of efforts to continue.

Yeah.

But it's absolutely amazing to see such a collective effort because these people also act as actual communicators of the world. They go to their little societies, their little, you know...

Hmm.

friends, neighborhoods, communities, and they presented results because they also did work. And

Yeah.

What's the deal?

this acts as a communication also for large mission. And this is why today we can talk about exoclok, exoplanets, the aerial mission that we're connected and contributing. It's quite well known, at least in the amateur society, and this makes us quite happy also.

And I think having the citizen scientists as authors, it really shows that level of trust between them

Mm-hmm.

and then the professional scientists. So how do you ensure that that trust is there and it continues to grow, right? Because the professionals have to trust that the citizen scientists are doing their job and the citizens have to trust that they're gonna get the proper acknowledgement. So how do you ensure that that kind of blooms and grows?

It's a big challenge. So I don't think it's a straightforward answer on this. It needs quite a lot of engagement and communication. if I can say share something from all the years of experience with working together is that the more transparent we are, the more trust we get, the more communicative,

Yeah.

the more also we discuss our processes, we get opinions, feedback, reflection. the more people are happy and feel safe, if we can say that in this way. So they will trust, they will become even more motivated, not only trust,

Yeah, I love that.

which is opening a big door for me all these. I how do you think that this trust that you are building between the community in science and the community of people interested in science? And because we cannot think about we can talk about communities because you are really touching hundreds of people all around the world. So how do you think this can contribute in changing the culture of how people trust science more in general and what do you think we will need as a community to do next to keep growing this

Mm-hmm.

connection that you are putting together there and to keep building this trust.

First of all, I consider the role of communicators, public engagement, officers and people that can facilitate this effort quite important.

Yes!

Yes, here you are. So the most important is to acknowledge this role and from the scientific community to acknowledge that it's important for any type of research we're doing to have communication,

Yeah.

to have engagement. As soon as we acknowledge that, then the mindset can change. But I know that although science communication and public engagement is mentioned is now like everything is changing.

shift in research. I don't think it's yet established in any type of research because of course the funding will give priority on the actual research but we have to acknowledge that there is such to happen and it's to consider the science and society connection. If the society or all as many people from the society are not there then we cannot talk about science because when we do science we do it for everyone not just for the professionals not for the scientists.

Mmm.

I'm loving this answer. I love this answer. Yes, when we are doing science, we doing it for everyone. That's that's yeah.

100%, yeah.

Yes, this is what we need, the professionals, we need to always think when we do something, is my work related to the public? How is useful? How can make it useful? How they can become part of it? How can make it more open? Even

Yeah.

making it open, it's important. So the big thing that we need to identify and realize now is this. We don't think as how we the scientists reach to the public, but how

Mm-hmm.

we are connected with it and how our work is useful, connected with members. We cannot force anyone, of course. You will always have this gap of people that are not interested, but at least give the opportunity. make it open,

Mm-hmm.

transparent, reach out, communicate it, have any type of communication from informing people to giving opportunities to be part if they want to. Not necessarily.

So the other side of the coin, to keep this connection open, to keep this trust that you are building, that you are

Mm-hmm.

mentioning, which is so important, and to keep reminding ourselves that we are doing things for everyone. What mistakes should the community, the scientific community avoid to keep building the right culture?

So I think it's again a multi-faced answer,

Statistical

but yes, because there are many components being involved for this answer. But the most, the biggest I would say is the mindset. So as soon as you're open, that you're not the scientist, the expert, the one that knows everything and you have the role and you know, kind of feeding this mindset. Yeah, exactly.

This image of the old wizard in a big rope, yeah?

Ha ha ha!

As soon as we get rid of this, the more we get rid of this and the more we create this culture of openness and you know... collaboration, involvement, the more mistakes we will avoid.

And you're making XO clock more accessible and open, right? Because XO clock unlocked is for people who don't have equipment, right? So there's

Mmm. Yeah.

like a new branch of this.

Exactly. So for the past four years we have created this project which is called Unlocked because it unlocks even the step of observing data because we had quite a few people registering in the project or approaching us and saying look I want to learn about exoplanets I want to contribute but I don't have equipment can I do it?

Yeah and do you know what it's expensive equipment so

Yes, exactly.

yeah it's not everyone can have it especially you know a telescope is one thing but then a camera yeah it just it jumps up in price.

It's a setup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also is the expertise behind it. We train people, we have community meetings, have training workshops.

And the good thing is that everybody has different learning pace. So they can follow their pace. can, you know, they can manage probably from the first month to do an observation because they are learning faster. Somebody may require more months. This is okay. But they're here. We

Yeah. Yeah.

work together. We support them. They're not left behind. So this is what is happening also in ExoClock Unlocked. They may have zero background in science and we provide them with all the tools. We provide them even with the telescopes. They use remote telescopes and they

wow. Okay.

are trained to use them, schedule a planet observation.

Yeah.

then analyzing them. They work by teams. So we worked

Mmm.

in different ways in this project since the beginning. And again, by learning from our mistakes or from the best ways that people work. I think now we managed to have a really nice format and we have a lot of application because people are interested to get into something that is well organized and connecting

Hehe.

them with a mission.

So anyone who's been listening and they're thinking I can't get involved I don't have a telescope

You

have no fear X o'clock unlocked is here

Unlocked. it's really fascinating how much the different backgrounds come together and they create such a nice community.

Yeah, I love that. I love that it's all different people, because that's how you get the best ideas is when people from different backgrounds and different types of education and different life experiences

the clip.

and mixing, that's when the ideas really stop popping. So Anastasia, before we wrap up, our signature question is something that we have to ask you. If you had to choose one celestial body, a planet, a star or something else entirely that represents you or your work, what would it be and why?

that's such a difficult question. Okay,

It's a difficult question, is, but it's our signature, that's what we end on.

I think... I can't resist because whatever I like, I love all exoplanets and so many interesting cases that I keep encountering mysteries and so many things that I want to share. And if I start now, we'll never end about interesting facts on exoplanets.

That's it, one. You gotta pick one that represents you. One object that represents you.

Okay, I will be the very common answer with our Earth because I really like our planet.

I like that.

And by studying all six planets, I keep reminding myself how much like a nice planet we are and we can support us our planet may not end up in a very good situation. So this is

Mm.

something that reminds me of how many interesting exoplanets there are, but I can't find any interesting for life, at least as we are.

no that's fair if it is a good choice.

That's a very nice answer. So, Anastasia, thank you. Thank you for showing us that exoplanet science is not about distant worlds, but also about building communities here on Earth.

And thank you to everyone listening. Join us next time on Growing World as we explore another corner of the universe and the people bringing it closer.

Thank you.