CCP Games' Second 'Project Discovery' Aims To Find Exoplanets

Nearly a year ago, CCP Games announced Project Discovery, a program within EVE Online that enlisted the help of its large player base to analyze real-world protein patterns in order to improve the Human Protein Atlas. This year, Project Discovery will take on a new task: searching for new planets.

The studio will work in collaboration with Massively Multiplayer Online Sciences, the University of Reykjavik, and the University of Geneva. The project will also enlist the help of Michael Mayor, an honorary professor at the University of Geneva, the winner of the 2017 Wolf Prize for Physics who was credited with the discovery of the first exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system).

For now, we know that the second iteration of Project Discovery will have players interact with real-life astronomical data. Once enough players reach a definitive classification on any piece of data, it will then be sent to the University of Geneva in order to find more exoplanets.

When it partnered with the Human Protein Atlas, CCP found that players submitted over 25 million cell classifications to the project, which bodes well for the second iteration of the event. CCP’s announcement of the event comes hot off the heels of NASA’s earlier announcement today that its Spitzer Space Telescope found seven Earth-sized planets (three of which are within the “habitable zone”) orbiting a single star called TRAPPIST-1. The system is 40 light-years, or 235 trillion miles, away.

CCP Games said that the new project will start sometime this year. More information will be shown at the annual EVE Fanfest in Reykjavik that takes place April 6-8.