Ever want to help science make the world’s largest telescope? That phone in your pocket could do the trick and help scientists answer a long standing physics puzzle. UC Irvine physicist Daniel Whiteson and UC Davis physicist Michael Mulhearn have developed an app for your phone that could help them discover the source of cosmic rays.

The rays are particles that are more energetic than what’s created at CERN… up to a billion times more energetic. We’ve known about them for years but no one knows where they come from since they’re so rare.

This is where the app, which is called CRAYFIS, comes in. CRAYFIS stands for Cosmic Rays Found in Smartphones and collects data when the phone is plugged into a power source. It uses silicon-based sensors in smartphone cameras which operate on the same principals as the detectors in large particle laboratories such as CERN.

The best part is that if your phone gathers data used in a scientific paper, you’ll be offered authorship. Sweet deal! Scientific authorship without a science degree! Check out the app here.