Citizen scientists find gas giant in quadruple star system

BBC : A new planet has been discovered by two volunteers using the Planethunters.org website. Kian Jek from San Francisco and Robert Gagliano from Cottonwood, Arizona, are among the more than 170 000 members of the public who since December 2010 have been sifting through data gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. In the citizen science project, volunteers were asked to look for faint dips in the light caused by a planet passing in front of a star. Scientists are relying on human pattern-recognition skills, which are superior to those of computers, to sort through the mounds of data collected by the telescope. The planet, some 5000 light-years away, is believed to orbit four suns. It was named PH1, for the Planet Hunters site.