Do you long to explore the universe and contribute to astronomy?
Would you like to be the first human to lay eyes on a particular galaxy?
Could you be the first to find an unknown object in space?
If you have a computer, an Internet connection, curiosity, and little time, then you can take part in building the largest database of galactic information in the world! Just visit:
Galaxy Zoo
A Spiral Galaxy
At Galaxy Zoo you can actively participate in new astronomical research.
Galaxy Zoo relies on a relatively new concept called crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing takes advantage of computers and the internet to get a large number of people to each do a very small task which can add up to an enormous amount of the total work being done quickly and easily.
“Many hands make light work”
The task that Galaxy Zoo and its astronomers need you to do is to make observations about the millions of galaxies that have been photographed by the Hubble and other telescopes. The galaxies need to be classified and categorized but there are just far too many for the experts to do.
So far hundreds of thousands of people have helped make hundreds of millions of observations. You can read about the history in The Story So Far.
The way it works is that you are shown a picture of a galaxy and asked to make observations like:
- Is the galaxy simply smooth and rounded, with no sign of a disk?
- How rounded is it?
- Could this be a disk viewed edge-on?
- Does the galaxy have a bulge at its center? If so, what shape?
- Is there any sign of a spiral arm pattern?
Clear guidance is provided on how to answer the questions. I found that keeping this guidance page open and referring back to it really helped when making observations for the first time.
An Elliptical Galaxy
You may ask ‘What if I make a mistake and misidentify a galaxy? Will I mess up the experiment?’
Don’t worry, part of the beauty of crowdsourcing is that you are not the only one participating. It can rely on statistics and probabilities from input from all the participants.
Each galaxy can potentially be shown to 10s or even 100s of people. Then depending on what type of experiment an astronomer is running, they can retrieve data only for galaxies where 100% of the observations match, or perhaps 90% agreement is OK – this can weed out the occasional mistake or confusion. If a particular observation for a given galaxy is spilt 50/50 then the galaxy could be flagged and an expert could look at the data given.
The Mysterious Voorwerp
The Voorwerp
The Voorwerp (the blue smudge) is a mysterious object first discovered by a Galaxy Zoo volunteer. No one is quite sure what it is. You can read more about it at The Mystery of the Voorwerp Deepens!.
Perhaps you will be the discoverer of the next Voorwerp – maybe it will even get named after you!
Take Part and Contribute
To participate you will need to sign up and register at Galaxy Zoo. I created a family account so anyone in our family can log on and answer questions at any time.
Additionally they’ve got some excellent material about telescopes, stars, galaxies, and our universe. Have a great time making scientific discovery part of your learning experience!
Do you know others would like to participate? If so please ‘Share It’ with them using the links below.
