I was an astronomy volunteer and I am a co-author of multiple publications. My research area involved brown dwarfs, infrared transient events, debris around white dwarfs and occasionally active supermassive black holes.

Community Science

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In 2018 to 2021 I was doing volunteer work for various projects on Zooniverse. I began with the project Higgs Hunters, but then I became more focused on astronomy and became a moderator for the Milky Way Project.[1] I then made my first discoveries, most notably I did co-discover the infrared excess around the white dwarf star LSPM J0207+3331.[2][3]

I also discovered a number of brown dwarfs in the backyard worlds project. I co-disovered several M, L, T and Y-dwarfs. These include:

I also worked on transient events seen in mid-infrared by the NEOWISE mission, mostly supernovae. This includes the identification of ASASSN−18ap as a possible Tidal Disruption Event,[7][8] which was later studied in detail by Wang et al.[9] Another variable object related discovery is the discovery of a bright explosion around IRAS 07572−3100, accompanied by the appearance of a new nebula in the optical and near-infrared.[10] This transient was later independently discovered by another team and observed by Lynne Hillenbrand with the Keck Observatory.[11]

I also identified dusty tails coming from low-mass stars in several star-forming regions, which is seen as a sign of photoevaporation.[12][13] I am one of the galaxy zoo volunteers that did actively search for Voorwerpjes.[14]

List of planetary-mass objects

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I maintain a list of free-floating planetary-mass objects, which I collected from the literature. These are objects with a mass below 13 MJup and are not orbiting a star, brown dwarf or stellar remnant. I called the website that hosts this list "Isolated Planets Archive" and it contains over 400 objects and candidates.[15]

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Creating images

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I consider it more of a hobby to create images and gifs out of astronomical data and satellite images. Such as an asteroid in front of the crab nebula.[16][17]

 
A comparison between AllWISE atlas images (left) and unWISE coadds (right). The image shows the star forming region IC 1590. An image I did create for wikipedia

NGC objects and other catalogues

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I created images of NGC objects between May 2023 and December 2023. I mostly created images for objects that did not have any images or only had old images from the DSS/DSS2 surveys on wikimedia commons. This way I created more than 1000 images. I also created images for RCW and Barnard catalogues. Sometimes I am working on images for the IC objects. Most images were created with DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys data, but for some I used data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The software I used was mostly SAO Image DS9 and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Example images created with data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys

Wikipedia edits

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I mostly edit wikipedia pages that already exist. And sometimes I create a new wikipedia article, such as

References

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  1. ^ Jayasinghe, Tharindu; Dixon, Don; Povich, Matthew S.; Binder, Breanna; Velasco, Jose; Lepore, Denise M.; Xu, Duo; Offner, Stella; Kobulnicky, Henry A.; Anderson, Loren D.; Kendrew, Sarah; Simpson, Robert J. (2019-09-01). "The Milky Way Project second data release: bubbles and bow shocks". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 488: 1141–1165. doi:10.1093/mnras/stz1738. ISSN 0035-8711.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  2. ^ Debes, John H.; Thévenot, Melina; Kuchner, Marc; Burgasser, Adam; Schneider, Adam; Meisner, Aaron; Gagné, Jonathan; Faherty, Jaqueline K.; Rees, Jon M.; Allen, Michaela; Caselden, Dan; Cushing, Michael; Wisniewski, John; Allers, Katelyn; The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Collaboration; the Disk Detective Collaboration (2019-02-19). "A 3 Gyr White Dwarf with Warm Dust Discovered via the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Project". The Astrophysical Journal. 872 (2): L25. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab0426. ISSN 2041-8213.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  3. ^ Garner, Rob (2019-02-19). "Citizen Scientist Finds Ancient White Dwarf Star With Puzzling Rings". NASA. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
  4. ^ Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Gelino, Christopher R.; Faherty, Jacqueline K.; Meisner, Aaron M.; Caselden, Dan; Schneider, Adam C.; Marocco, Federico; Cayago, Alfred J.; Smart, R. L.; Eisenhardt, Peter R.; Kuchner, Marc J.; Wright, Edward L.; Cushing, Michael C.; Allers, Katelyn N.; Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella C. (2021-03-01). "The Field Substellar Mass Function Based on the Full-sky 20 pc Census of 525 L, T, and Y Dwarfs". The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 253: 7. arXiv:2011.11616. Bibcode:2021ApJS..253....7K. doi:10.3847/1538-4365/abd107. ISSN 0067-0049.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  5. ^ Softich, Emma; Schneider, Adam C.; Patience, Jennifer; Burgasser, Adam J.; Shkolnik, Evgenya; Faherty, Jacqueline K.; Caselden, Dan; Meisner, Aaron M.; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Kuchner, Marc J.; Gagne, Jonathan; Gagliuffi, Daniella Bardalez; Cushing, Michael C.; Casewell, Sarah L.; Aganze, Christian (2022-02-01). "CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB: The Widest Known Brown Dwarf Binary in the Field". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 926 (2): L12. arXiv:2202.02315. Bibcode:2022ApJ...926L..12S. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac51d8. ISSN 2041-8205.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  6. ^ Marocco, Federico; Kirkpatrick, J. Davy; Schneider, Adam C.; Meisner, Aaron M.; Popinchalk, Mark; Gelino, Christopher R.; Faherty, Jacqueline K.; Burgasser, Adam J.; Caselden, Dan; Gagné, Jonathan; Aganze, Christian; Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella C.; Casewell, Sarah L.; Hsu, Chih-Chun; Kiman, Rocio (2024-06-01). "Thirteen New M Dwarf + T Dwarf Pairs Identified with WISE/NEOWISE". The Astrophysical Journal. 967: 147. arXiv:2404.14324. Bibcode:2024ApJ...967..147M. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad3f1d. ISSN 0004-637X.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  7. ^ Thévenot, Melina (2020-12-01). "Mid-Infrared Detections of SNe II with NEOWISE". Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 4: 243. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/abd415. ISSN 2515-5172.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  8. ^ Thévenot, Melina; Gantier, Jean Marc; Kabatnik, Martin; Schümann, Jörg; Gramaize, Leopold (2021-03-01). "Mid-infrared Detections of Type I Supernovae and Unclassified Possible Supernovae with NEOWISE". Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 5: 58. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/abf120. ISSN 2515-5172.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  9. ^ Wang, Yibo; Wang, Tinggui; Jiang, Ning; Zhang, Xiaer; Zhu, Jiazheng; Shu, Xinwen; Huang, Shifeng; Zhang, FaBao; Sheng, Zhenfeng; Lin, Zheyu (2024-05-01). "ASASSN-18ap: A Dusty Tidal Disruption Event Candidate with an Early Bump in the Light Curve". The Astrophysical Journal. 966: 136. arXiv:2312.12015. Bibcode:2024ApJ...966..136W. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad2ae4. ISSN 0004-637X.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  10. ^ Thévenot, Melina (2020-12-01). "Appearance of a New Nebula in the Constellation Puppis after an Outburst in 2015 around WISEA J075915.26-310844.6". Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 4: 242. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/abd40e. ISSN 2515-5172.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  11. ^ Hillenbrand, Lynne (2021-02-01). "IRAS 07572-3100 and the New Nebula in Puppis: Outburst from a Young Stellar Object or an Exotic AGB Star Event?". The Astronomer's Telegram. 14416: 1.
  12. ^ Thévenot, Melina; Doll, Katharina; Durantini Luca, Hugo A. (2019-07-01). "Photoevaporation of Two Proplyds in the Star Cluster Collinder 69 Discovered with Spitzer MIPS". Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 3: 95. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/ab30c5. ISSN 2515-5172.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  13. ^ Thévenot, Melina (2020-01-01). "Cometary Tails as a Sign of Disk Photoevaporation in NGC 6193". Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 4: 15. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/ab701d. ISSN 2515-5172.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  14. ^ Keel, William; Moiseev, Alexei; Bennert, Vardha Nicola; Maksym, W.; Chojnowski, Stephen; Jonkeren, Alexander; Theunissen, Ine; Thomas, Adam; Simmons, Brooke; Smethurst, Rebecca; O'Ryan, David; Urry, C.; Scarlata, Claudia (2024-02-01). "The 2nd Galaxy Zoo search for distant EELRs around extant and fading AGN: 40 new Voorwerpjes". American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #243. 243: 175.08.
  15. ^ "Isolated planets archive". Isolated planets archive. Retrieved 2024-08-01.
  16. ^ "Foreground asteroid passing the Crab Nebula". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
  17. ^ information@eso.org. "Asteroid in the Crab Nebula (M1)". www.spacetelescope.org. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
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