Not Planets, Not Stars: NASA Volunteers Doubled the Number of Known Brown Dwarfs

What happens when hundreds of thousands of volunteers team up with NASA to explore the sky? In the case of Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, thousands of new brown dwarfs. NASA citizen scientists have helped discover more than 3,000 brown dwarfs, effectively doubling the known population of these mysterious objects over the past decade. These discoveries are helping astronomers better understand the boundary between planets and stars, revealing rare ultra-cool worlds, extreme T subdwarfs, and even brown dwarfs that may host aurorae. Dr. Lauren Sgro and special guest Dr. Adam C. Schneider (United States Naval Observatory) discuss how citizen scientists made these discoveries, why brown dwarfs are so difficult to detect, and what this growing catalog is teaching us about our galactic neighborhood. Press release: https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved... Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10... Backyard Worlds: Planet 9: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/m... #SETILive #BrownDwarfs #CitizenScience #NASA #Astronomy #SpaceScience #BackyardWorlds #SETIInstitute #Exoplanets #AstronomyCommunity 📺 SETI Live is a weekly livestream from the SETI Institute, featuring researchers and discoveries that deepen our understanding of the universe—and our place within it. If you like science, support the SETI Institute! We're a non-profit research institution focused on understanding the nature and origins of life in the universe. 💸 Donate here: https://seti.org/donate Learn more about the SETI Institute and stay up-to-date on awesome science: 🛎 Subscribe to our YouTube channel at    / setiinstitute   🕹 Watch our streams over on Twitch at   / setiinstitute   🎧 Listen to our podcast https://feeds.libsyn.com/462636/rss 📧 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter https://seti.org/signup 👕 Buy merchandise from Chop Shop https://www.chopshopstore.com/collect... Don't forget to like and subscribe! Ring the bell to be notified when we go live.