Citizen Science

The Black Hole Hunters project is a citizen science search for self-lensing events. That means anyone – including you! – can help with the search by reviewing light curves online.

Black Hole Hunters launched in September 2021 with data from the archives of the SuperWASP exoplanet search. That original project finsihed about a year later, having completed the SuperWASP search and identifying several interesting candidates. These candidates are still being investigated, with more detailed follow-up observations planned to confirm the presence of a black hole. We expect it to take several years to confirm these first candidates, but we will be publishing some initial results soon.

In January 2024 we launched the next version of Black Hole Hunters, using data from the TESS satellite. With this newer, space-based survey we expect to be able to find far more candidates than before. Any candidates we find could also be easier to confirm. So far the project is going great, with our volunteers submitting half a million classifications in the first week and tagging many interesting examples on the Talk discussion forum.

It’s only a matter of time before we find and confirm the first self-lensing black hole. Come join the fun and you could be the one to find it!

SuperWASP Results

Here’s a sneak peak of some of the early light curves flagged by our volunteers. Watch this space for an update later in 2024 with full details of the candidates we’ve found!