Science Objectives

Most stars form together with other stars; that is, stars are typically born with many “siblings.” In fact, there is good evidence that our Solar System was born in an environment with many other stars. The PERYSCOPE project is about discovering the properties of groups (or clusters) of stars that are still in the process of forming. We call these embryonic groups of stars protoclusters. Protoclusters are invisible, but we can “see” and study them by using infrared light that reveals their dusty birthplaces. Volunteers who participated in the Milky Way Project (MWP) on the people-powered Zooniverse platform identified these birthplaces across the Galaxy and named them “yellowballs,” from their roundish “yellow” appearance in infrared images taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Yellowballs (or YBs) aren’t really yellow – they just appear that way in the representative red-green-blue color scheme that was used to depict three different wavelengths (or “colors”) of infrared light. The prominent appearance of YBs in these infrared images enabled MWP volunteers to identify more than 6,000 in the Milky Way!

Our research team is interested in learning more about the physical environments of YBs. We first need to measure how bright YBs are at different wavelengths of infrared light, and we're asking students for their help in doing this! We designed the PERYSCOPE Project to provide "Astro-101-level" students with the opportunity to work with real data. PERYSCOPE enables students to learn basic astronomical concepts, while empowering them to participate in the actual process of science, and helping us better understand how stars are born. If you are an astronomy instructor who may be interested in integrating experiences with real science into your curriculum, please contact us to learn more!

Our Goals

We’ll use the brightness measurements, along with other data, to determine important physical properties of YBs (e.g., masses, temperatures, and luminosities) and assemble a catalog that will identify the best YBs for follow-up observations with instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). These instruments can peer into YBs at very high resolution and help us study how matter actually assembles into individual stars. As with all scientific research, we expect that results from PERYSCOPE will lead to new questions about how stars form.