Announcing our new STEP Grant winners: A Solar System shadow-tracker, a new telescope tool, and an asteroid database

Three groups of scientists will receive crowdfunded support to further the scientific exploration of space. Science Review by Bruce Betts, PhD September 21, 2026 Whether searching for extraterrestrial intelligence or building our very own space mission, The Planetary Society has a long history of advancing cutting-edge space science and technology.

Now, we are announcing the latest winners of our Science and Technology Empowered by the Public (STEP) Grants: three groups of scientists who will receive crowdfunded support for important work that furthers the scientific exploration of space. They were selected based on their scientific value, achievability, and relevance to The Planetary Society’s core enterprises, exploring worlds, finding life, and defending Earth, among other strengths.

Previous STEP Grant winners have explored the possibility of growing plants in space, used rare lakes on Earth to learn about potentially habitable moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and recruited people around the world to help search for intelligent alien life. Though Rubin is expected to find tens of thousands of TNOs and other small Solar System worlds, it will not provide detailed measurements of some of their properties, including their size.

To help coordinate this science, a few groups of astronomers regularly publish predictions of which stellar occultations will be happening when. The coming discoveries from Rubin will far outnumber what could be handled by existing occultation networks.

This project funds the expansion of an existing prediction tool, called the Collaborative Occultation Resources and Archive (CORA), to enable it to automatically handle the tens of thousands of new worlds that Rubin will soon discover. The result will multiply Rubin’s impact, turning initial discoveries into a more detailed understanding of these distant worlds.

Co-Investigators: Katie Breeland-Newcomb (Lowell), Ryan Hamilton (Lowell), Stephen Levine, Maxime Devogele (ESA/NEOCC), Ben Hardesty (Lowell) Nicholas Moskovitz and his team plan to help fix that.

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