An anonymous reader writes “Peter Jalowiczor is a gas worker from South Yorkshire, England. He’s also the discoverer of four giant exoplanets, according to the University of California’s Lick-Carnegie Planet Search Team. But he’s not an astronomer and he doesn’t even have a telescope. ‘…in 2005, astronomers at the university released millions of space measurements collected over several decades and asked enthusiasts to make of them what they would. … From March 2007 Peter, 45, spent entire nights reading the data, working the figures, creating graphs. … He then sent discrepancies he discovered back to the scientists in California where they were further analyzed to see if the quirks were caused by the existence of an exoplanet.’”

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Originally posted here:
How a Guy Found 4 New Planets Without a Telescope