Planet Hunters CHEOPS

Welcome to Planet Hunters CHEOPS! The European Space Agency’s (ESA) CHEOPS satellite is revolutionising exoplanet science by measuring the brightness of stars with incredible precision. While its primary goal is to characterise planets already found by missions like TESS and Kepler, its data often holds hidden gems: shallow transits from small, Earth-sized worlds, signals from multi-planet systems, or unexpected variations that machines overlook.

Just like the successful Planet Hunters TESS project on Zooniverse, we need your eyes. Computers are great at finding obvious patterns, but they struggle with subtle, noisy, or unusual signals. By classifying light curves, i.e, the graphs showing how a star’s brightness changes over time, you can help us identify the tiny dips caused by a planet passing in front of its star. Every dip you spot contributes to a global effort to understand the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy.

We have extracted light-curves from thousands of background sources on over five years of public observations taken by the CHEOPS space telescope and we are offering all of them for you to help us finding further transiting exoplanet signatures on any of these light-curves that have never been examined in detail to our knowledge.

Whether you are an astronomy enthusiast or a complete beginner, your contribution matters. Tens of classifications per target allow us to filter out noise and confirm real signals. Several discoveries from citizen science projects have led to peer-reviewed scientific papers, with volunteers credited as co-authors. Together, we are pushing the boundaries of what we know about worlds beyond our solar system. Get started today and become part of the next great exoplanet discovery!