Citizen Planet Hunters

While the Kepler sattelite is terrific at high-volume data-processing, nothing beats the human eye for pattern-recognition - which is why a project dreamed up by Yale University astronomer Debra Fischer, a veteran planet hunter and Kepler project scientist, has turned out to be so extraordinarily useful. Called "Planet Hunters," it lets ordinary folks with no scientific training at all help find planets the Kepler software has missed.