NASA'S CITIZEN SCIENCE PROGRAM: SCIENCE IS MORE FUN WITH VOLUNTEERS! (Invited Presentation)

Citizen science has become a major force in planetary science. NASA's volunteers have discovered most of the known comets, every known sample of interstellar dust, hundreds of exoplanets and planetary-mass objects, the Peter Pan protoplanetary disk phenomenon, the oldest analog of our solar system, and much more. NASA's 38 active citizen science projects engage more than 2 million volunteers from more than 160 different countries. More than 450 of these volunteers have become named co-authors on published papers. Doing your science with volunteers produces novel results that would otherwise be un-attainable--and it's fun! I'll describe NASA's growing commitment to citizen science, and explain how you can get involved.