 Did you know that planets form from vast clouds of gas, dust, and chunks of rock? Clouds that are in the shape of disks with stars at the center. By searching for stars that are surrounded by these cloud disks, we can find out where planets are currently forming and where other planets probably exist today. Finding these planet-forming disks has been a major quest of astronomers for the past three decades. Through a project called Disk Detective, you can help. We're joined today by Dr. Mark Kushner, Citizen Science Officer at NASA Headquarters and Citizen Scientist Hugo Durantini-Luca. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks Emily. Thank you. So Mark, can you tell us a little bit more about Disk Detective? Why does NASA need help studying these objects? So NASA has a wonderful problem, which is that we have images of the whole sky infrared wavelengths and the images from NASA's WISE mission, the Wide Field Infrared Explorer, contain two billion sources. And which of those sources are the planet-forming disks? That's where we go to members of the public and ask for their help, figuring out which of those needles in the haystack is a real planet-forming disk. Wow. Wow. That is amazing that real people can help with this type of research. Hugo, you are one of those people. So what has been the most exciting part about working on this project? In this moment it's like a compilation of things since I am participating since 2014. The start for me was finding a project where I was able to participate and contribute with science and be engaged at the same time because I was trying a couple of things at that point, but they were project-fund projects and all, but there was no interaction with the science team, for example. And when I started to interact with Mark via Twitter at that point, I started to learn about the project and talk back and forth with the science team, I was able to interact with the project because that interaction was engaging. So I was able to contribute at the same time. I was learning about the project, how the project worked, how the people working in the project was. That was a very important thing at first because I didn't know much about astronomy at that point. I was able to find astronomy but I didn't know about the subject. So be able to participate and learn and reach the discovery like Peter Pan, for this detective, was something huge. I was not even thinking to discover at that point, maybe. I was only thinking to participate and be able to contribute in an active way. And we've been learning from you too, Hugo. It's been a wonderful six years working together with you. I feel so fortunate to be able to meet the citizen scientists that we've met through this project. Yeah, it seems like such a great community. So can anyone get involved and help with this project? What sort of experience do people need? No experience necessary. So you just go to discdetective.org. There's a short online tutorial in about five minutes. You're looking at data, you're helping NASA, and you're potentially making discoveries. Indeed. And remember, you are going to be having fun while learning. So be patient. If the project really caught your attention, you are going to have much time to learn about more details and different parts of the project. So have a try and have fun. That's awesome. That's such good advice. That was actually going to be my next question. What sort of advice do you have for people that might be interested in getting started? In astronomy, patient is one of the key because astronomy has a lot of different things, a lot of tools and surveys and catalogs and vocabulary to learn that patient is one of the keys aside of wanting to learn. And astronomy has also a huge variety of things to study. Maybe you want to look at stars, or maybe you want to see pretty galaxies. They are also a project for that. Astronomy, can you have a big selection of things for you there? And Hugo, you helped us discover Peter Pan disks, which are the oldest disks that are still forming planets. So scientists, we astronomers thought that disks stopped forming planets after about five million years. But then the citizen scientists at this detective started finding objects that were able to form planets about nine or 10 times the age of that. So into the 40 and 50 million year old age range. And you know the astronomy community is still trying to figure out what that means. So that's pretty exciting. That's amazing. That is so cool that new discoveries have come out of this working with citizens scientists. Yeah. And maybe for people participating, Jack, I can leave you some surprise like me when I was invited to my local TV station to an interview about that. Well, you became a local celebrity for a bit by making a decent science discovery. That is so cool. Wow. Well, that's all the time we have today. Thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Yes, of course.