Astronomical League National Young Astronomer Award (NYAA)
A national award from the Astronomical League that recognizes outstanding original astronomical research by US high-school-age students, judged by a panel of professional astronomers; the first-place winner receives a telescope and an expense-paid trip to the League's national convention, ALCon.
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Exoplanet Watch (NASA)
A NASA citizen-science project in which volunteers, including complete beginners, observe exoplanet transits with their own telescope or request free archival/robotic-telescope data, analyze the resulting light curves with NASA's free EXOTIC software, and submit results to a shared scientific database.
Galaxy Zoo (Zooniverse)
A Zooniverse citizen-science project, active since 2018, in which volunteers classify the shapes of distant galaxies from telescope images, including new imagery from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, to help astronomers study how galaxies form and evolve.
Las Cumbres Observatory – 100 Global High School Teams
A Las Cumbres Observatory education program that gives high school student teams free access to LCO's global network of 0.4-meter robotic telescopes to observe galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters, with online training in astronomical data-analysis tools such as SalsaJ and TopCAT.
Pulsar Science Collaboratory (NANOGrav)
An out-of-school-time citizen-science research program in which students age 13 and up receive training and then analyze real radio-astronomy data from the Green Bank and Arecibo-affiliated telescopes to search for new pulsars; several student participants have been credited as co-discoverers of real pulsars.
Rubin Comet Catchers (Zooniverse)
A Zooniverse citizen-science project launched in 2025 in which volunteers examine images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time to spot comets and active asteroids showing tails or comae, helping scientists understand how planetary systems, including our own, formed and evolved.
UC Santa Cruz Science Internship Program (SIP) – Astronomy & Astrophysics Track
A 9-week summer research internship at UC Santa Cruz that pairs high school students (ages 14-17) one-on-one with UCSC astronomy faculty and graduate mentors on real astrophysics projects, such as mapping galaxy environments with James Webb Space Telescope data or studying stellar populations in M31/M33.