Citizen Science Approach to Planetary Defense and Exoplanet Characterization

Astronomical data is expanding rapidly, with upcoming missions like the Vera Rubin Observatory, Ariel, and PLATO set to generate petabytes of data. Citizen scientists play a crucial role by providing continuous observations, validating findings, and developing open-source models to improve data quality and support long-term analysis. One key application is planetary defense. Of the 1.3 million known asteroids, only a small fraction have detailed phase curves, limiting threat assessment. To address this, I developed algorithms that integrate sparse observations from space- and ground-based surveys with citizen science data, accelerating asteroid characterization. I applied this to the Didymos system, confirming its successful deflection in NASA’s DART mission. A similar challenge exists in exoplanet research. Many planets remain undetected due to gravitational interactions with unseen companions, causing subtle Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). To analyze these, I generated large-scale N-body simulations. Combined with data from Kepler, TESS, and ExoClock, this approach refines orbital and physical parameters in multi-planet systems.