The EVE Online blog has been updated with the news that the next phase of Project Discovery will begin on July 11th. The project "brings citizen science to space in both EVE Online and in the real world". It is designed to allow players to analyze real-world astronomical data, most notable surrounding that gathered by the CoRoT telescope.
Pilots will be presented with light curves that belong to any one of the 160,000 stars that the CoRoT telescope is monitoring, and will be tasked with identifying transitional planets – planets that are passing between the star and Earth – by highlight drops in the star’s luminosity.
To do this, pilots will be equipped with in game tools to filter out variations in the star’s luminosity that do not resemble transiting events, as well as a tool to confirm that these transits are regular and periodic.
When our pilots have reached a consensus, the data will be transmitted to scientists from the University of Geneva, who will then study the results and confirm your finding
During the analysis period, players will take part in-game and be able to earn rewards beneficial while playing.
You can read more about the effort, including the "hard science" behind it, by visiting the EVE Online site.
