Fazari Sky Explorer
  1. Drag & zoom the sky
  2. Tap a pointPick a point: click the sky or search
  3. Fetch SPHEREx imagesPress the yellow button
  4. Watch the blinkRead the result

These rings are known catalogue stars; we use them to check that the tool measures correctly. What we look for is something with no ring that still moves between images.

How to read a blink

  1. 1. Pictures flip back and forth

    A blink shows the same patch of sky, photographed months apart, one after the other. Your eye catches anything that changes.

  2. 2. Still dots are the background

    Almost every star and galaxy is so far away that it never seems to move. If a dot stays put, it is background.

  3. 3. A dot that jumps has moved

    A small, steady step is a nearby star or brown dwarf crossing the sky. A big jump, or a dot that is there only once, is usually an asteroid.

  4. 4. Same place, new brightness: a variable

    If a dot stays in place but grows brighter or fainter, it is a variable star, like a pulsing red giant or a young star behind moving dust.

  5. 5. Some changes are not real

    Cosmic-ray hits, satellite trails and glitches near image edges appear in just one picture. A real object shows up in several pictures and wavelengths.

Spotted something odd? Call it a candidate, not a discovery. Astronomers check it against star catalogues (like Gaia and WISE) and more data first. That is how real science works.

Credits

Acknowledgements requested by the data providers

This publication makes use of data products from the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), which is a joint project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, and is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology. SPHEREx DR1 (doi:10.26131/IRSA678) and QR3 (doi:10.26131/IRSA662) images were accessed in 2026 from registry.opendata.aws/spherex-qr.

Gaia DR3 is data of ESA, the European Space Agency, a Space Apps partner agency. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia, processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. (Gaia Collaboration, Prusti et al. 2016, A&A 595, A1; Gaia Collaboration, Vallenari et al. 2023, A&A 674, A1.)

This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation (Skrutskie et al. 2006, AJ 131, 1163).

This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Wright et al. 2010, AJ 140, 1868), and from NEOWISE, which is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the Planetary Science Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. AllWISE and CatWISE2020 (Marocco et al. 2021, ApJS 253, 8) are built from these data.

The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen's University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Chambers et al. 2016, arXiv:1612.05560; Flewelling et al. 2020, ApJS 251, 7).

The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions.

This research has made use of the SIMBAD database (Wenger et al. 2000, A&AS 143, 9), the VizieR catalogue access tool (doi:10.26093/cds/vizier; Ochsenbein, Bauer & Marcout 2000, A&AS 143, 23), the Sesame name resolver and the Aladin Lite sky atlas (Bonnarel et al. 2000, A&AS 143, 33; Boch & Fernique 2014, ASPC 485, 277), all operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.

This research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program (Planetary Systems Composite Parameters, doi:10.26133/NEA13; Christiansen et al. 2025).

Use of AI: the code and text of this site were written with help from Anthropic's Claude (Claude Code). Team Fazari designed the project and checked and tested the results. The sky images and measurements come from the data sources credited here, not from an AI model.

Made by team Fazari for NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 (“Planet X and SPHEREx”). This site is not endorsed by NASA. Source: github.com/adembtr/fazari.