Planet Hunters TESS II: Findings from the first two years of TESS

Abstract

We present the results from the first two years of the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science project, which identifies planet candidates in the TESS data by engaging members of the general public. Over 22,000 citizen scientists from around the world visually inspected the first 26 Sectors of TESS data in order to help identify transit-like signals. We use a clustering algorithm to combine these classifications into a ranked list of events for each sector, the top 500 of which are then visually vetted by the science team. We assess the detection efficiency of this methodology by comparing our results to the list of TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) and show that we recover 85 % of the TOIs with radii greater than 4 Earth radii and 51 % of those with radii between 3 and 4 Earth radii. Additionally, we present our 90 most promising planet candidates that had not previously been identified by other teams, 73 of which exhibit only a single transit event in the TESS light curve, and outline our efforts to follow these candidates up using ground-based observatories. Finally, we present noteworthy stellar systems that were identified through the Planet Hunters TESS project.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS (22 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables)

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• pyaneti II: A multidimensional Gaussian process approach to analysing spectroscopic time-series
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• The K2-OjOS Project: New and revisited planets and candidates in K2 campaigns 5, 16, & 18
• Gravity Spy: Lessons Learned and a Path Forward
• BG Ind: the nearest doubly eclipsing, compact hierarchical quadruple system
• Planet Hunters TESS IV: A massive, compact hierarchical triple star system TIC 470710327
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• The TESS Triple-9 Catalog: 999 uniformly vetted candidate exoplanets
• SuperWASP Variable Stars: Classifying Light Curves Using Citizen Science
• Multiscale entropy analysis of astronomical time series. Discovering subclusters of hybrid pulsators
• BU Canis Minoris -- the Most Compact Known Flat Doubly Eclipsing Quadruple System
• The TESS Triple-9 Catalog II: a new set of 999 uniformly-vetted exoplanet candidates
• Planet Hunters TESS III: two transiting planets around the bright G dwarf HD 152843
• Characterization of seven transiting systems including four warm Jupiters from SOPHIE and TESS
• Detection of seven 2+2 doubly eclipsing quadruple systems
• Using Dark Energy Explorers and Machine Learning to Enhance the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment
• DIAmante TESS AutoRegressive Planet Search (DTARPS): I. Analysis of 0.9 Million Light Curves
• DIAmante TESS AutoRegressive Planet Search (DTARPS): II. Hundreds of New TESS Candidate Exoplanets
• Planet Hunters TESS V: a planetary system around a binary star, including a mini-Neptune in the habitable zone
• TESS discovery of a super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes orbiting the bright, nearby, Sun-like star HD 22946
• Planet Four: A Neural Network's Search For Polar Spring-time Fans On Mars
• Planet Hunters NGTS: New Planet Candidates from a Citizen Science Search of the Next Generation Transit Survey Public Data
• A Cool Earth-sized Planet Candidate Transiting a Tenth Magnitude K-dwarf From K2
• ASTEP confirmation of a pair of long-period Jupiter-sized planets with extremely low densities transiting TOI-791
• The Number of Transits Per Epoch for Transiting Misaligned Circumbinary Planets
• The SATCHEL pipeline: A general tool for data classified through citizen science