NASA’s SunSketcher Highlights the Value of Citizen Science

The total solar eclipse of April 8th, 2024 generated broad public interest and provided opportunities for solar experiments. I participated in NASA’s SunSketcher citizen science experiment by producing a time-series of images during totality at the University of Toledo using the SunSketcher app. SunSketcher aims to measure the Sun’s size and oblateness to better understand internal solar dynamics. This short paper details research methodology and comments on the beauty natural cosmic wonders like solar eclipses evoke. Citizen science allows the community to generate datasets and solve problems individual teams could not do alone, highlighting the collaborative and social nature of science. More researchers should utilize citizen science methods for their experiments.