NASA said Wednesday that its Science Mission Directorate selected 19 proposals from research teams in 2026 that it said will create new opportunities for volunteers to take part in agency science¹.

Twelve of the selections are under the Citizen Science Seed Funding Program, which NASA said aims to help scientists develop citizen science projects and expand the pool of researchers who use those methods¹. Seven more are teams chosen through the Science Activation Program, which NASA described as competitively selected groups that connect communities with NASA science data, experts and research experiences¹.

Among the astrophysics seed awards, NASA listed a SPHEREx search for free-floating planets and brown dwarfs led by Jacqueline Faherty of the American Museum of Natural History, galaxy-merger classification work led by Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha of the University of Missouri, overlapping-galaxy dust studies led by Benne Holwerda of the University of Louisville, and a Roman Space Telescope microlensing planet search led by Bernard Gaudi of Ohio State University¹. NASA said the Overlap Zoo project is already live¹.

Heliophysics selections NASA named include MMS foreshock-transient identification led by Wenli Mo of Johns Hopkins University, magnetospheric particle analysis led by Muhammad Fraz Bashir of UCLA, and solar-corona feature spotting led by Cynthia Lopez-Portela of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County¹. In planetary science, NASA said Ariel Graykowski of the SETI Institute proposed a worldwide amateur telescope network for comet outbursts and small moving bodies¹.

Science Activation awards NASA listed include Sungrazer 2.0, led by MaryKay Severino of ARISA Lab with science lead Karl Battams of the Naval Research Laboratory, which NASA said continues a comet-discovery effort whose volunteers have identified 5,204 comets¹. Other named teams include amateur-radio ionosphere studies at the University of Scranton, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory robotic telescopes, University of North Carolina lake-level monitoring tied to NASA’s SWOT mission, and seasonal environmental observations in Alaska supporting several NASA Earth missions¹.

NASA’s page also cited earlier 2026 volunteer milestones, including brown-dwarf discoveries through Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 and a Zooniverse classification milestone, as context for the new round of projects¹. Funding amounts, start dates and how many of the 19 projects are already open to the public were not stated on the announcement¹.

Sources

1. NASANASA Selects 19 New Citizen Science Proposals in 202612:25 PM

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