PlanetQuest

For the 1999 book by Ken Croswell, see Planet Quest.

PlanetQuest is a grid computing project for discovering new planets and classifying stars from Earth-based observatories' images.

Overview

The PlanetQuest project is currently still under development, and will utilize the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) platform.

To search for new planets, PlanetQuest developed the Transit Detection Algorithm (TDA), photometric (light-measuring) method, which can automatically detect new planets, using the optical information from ground-based telescopes. The TDA has also been adapted for use in NASA's Kepler Mission. Some of the data gathered from Kepler will be processed by PlanetQuest.

Those working with PlanetQuest are encouraged to participate in the project's discussion group hosted by Google, where members are able to get project updates, work together to advance the project's goals, find support, and learn how to best make use of the BOINC software on their systems or networks.

See also

• Transit detection method
• Distributed computing
• List of distributed computing projects
• BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing)

External links

• PlanetQuest Website
• PlanetQuest Google Group