The more stars I collect the lower my score gets.
The score is based on the accuracy of your calculations. When you collect a new star, you have to fill in answers for all of the calculations. If any items are left blank, it will bring your score down. If there are stars you don’t need (duplicates you acquired while trying to complete the scavenger hunt or stars that you can’t fully analyze for some reason), you should delete them from the list. Click on List View on the top left then click the trash can next to any star you want to remove.
How do I know if a planet is habitable?
The only two requirements for a habitable planet within the Project are that the planet is terrestrial and that the temperature and pressure are such that liquid water is able to exist on the surface. Whether or not H2O is detected in the gases present is irrelevant.
How to enter the lifetime for a star?
Only enter the number of thousands, millions, billions, or trillions of years without all of the trailing zeros. Then use the drop down menu to select the appropriate unit prefix.
How to observe stars for planets?
Begin by entering the number of days you want to observe the star then hit enter or click the play button. There are 500 stars in the Project and about 100 of them have a period between 3000 and 10,000 days (all of the others are less than 3000 days). Look for dips in the lightcurve, which will begin to populate on the Normalized Flux vs Days Observed graph after you click play. Many of the dips are extremely small so you have to zoom in until you cannot zoom any further (you should see 99.9% under the 100%). You will have to click and drag within the graph to reposition the lightcurve to keep it visible (scrolling within the graph will change the zoom). Once you find a dip, hover over it to reveal the brightness drop. If you really struggle to find a dip, you can always delete that star from your collection and try another star. You are only required to analyze 30 of the 500 stars.
For this particular star, a tiny dip is visible between 440 and 445 days when the graph is fully zoomed in.
Hovering over the dip reveals the brightness drop.
How to submit the project?
Within the Project, you can revise your answers to improve your score until you submit it. When you are ready to submit the Project, select the “I am ready to submit project” checkbox and click the “Submit Project” button. The Project can be reopened after you submit it, via the "restart" option. If you reopen the Project, you will be brought back to the beginning of the activity, but all of the data you had is still there. Reopening the Project does not give you a clean slate to completely start over with new data.