NASA wants your help in search for new planet beyond Pluto

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This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) less

NASA scientists are scouring astrological data for a large planet at the edges of our solar system -- and they want your help.

The effort, called Backyard Worlds: Planet Nine, is a citizen science project that asks space enthusiasts to help the agency spot objects in the area around our solar system.

Backyard Worlds was launched in February 2016, but its origin began years earlier, according to NASA's tumblr.

In 2009, the agency launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, which scanned the skies for infrared light in search of galaxies, asteroids and stars. But the search turned up too much data for researchers to plow through on their own.

So, they asked for help.

Since the project began, citizens have spotted 432 candidates for brown dwarfs, which are balls of gas too small to be stars but too big to be planets. Of the 20 NASA researchers have followed up on, 17 proved to be real, the agency's tumblr stated.

These discoveries are exciting, but NASA is looking for something even greater: the mysterious Planet 9 that some scientists believe is circling past Pluto.

California Institute of Technology researchers in 2015 found mathematical evidence suggesting the planet might exist. They believe this as yet undiscovered planet is about the size of Neptune and takes between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make one full orbit around the sun, according to NASA.

RELATED STORY: NASA discovers eighth planet in faraway system.

But no one has spotted the hypothetical planet yet, the tumblr post stated.

"So come join the search, and you might find a rogue world that's nearer to the Sun than Proxima Centauri -- or even the elusive Planet Nine," the Backyard Worlds' website stated.

In the two years the project has been operational, more than 45,000 citizen volunteers have participated. To take a crack at spotting the planet, visit the project's website here.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.

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