Citizen+Science

=**Zooniverse Projects**= Galaxy Zoo: Morphological Classification and Citizen Science

All of the projects highlighted could potentially have their data interpreted through the use of automated neural networks!

**Planet Hunters**
NASA's Kepler spacecraft is one of the most powerful tools in the hunt for extrasolar planets. The Kepler team's computers are sifting through the data, but we at Planet Hunters are betting that there will be planets which can only be found via the remarkable human ability for pattern recognition. This is a gamble, a bet if you will, on the ability of humans to beat machines just occasionally. It may be that no new planets are found or that computers have the job down to a fine art. And yet, it's just possible that you might be the first to know that a star somewhere out there in the Milky Way has a companion, just as our Sun does.

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**Galaxy Zoo: Hubble**
Galaxy Zoo: Hubble uses gorgeous imagery of hundreds of thousands of galaxies drawn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope archive. To understand how these galaxies, and our own, formed we need your help to classify them according to their shapes — a task at which your brain is better than even the most advanced computer. If you're quick, you may even be the first person in history to see each of the galaxies you're asked to classify.

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**Galaxy Zoo: Mergers**
One important area of research in astronomy studies the role of interacting galaxies. Interacting galaxies are galaxies that exhibit a gravitational influence on one another. This influence is exhibited over the cours e of millions or even billions of years as two or more galaxies pass nearby one another. The near passage of two massive structures can cause the galaxies to be distorted and possibly merge. The Mergers project aims to provide a set of tools that will allow users to randomly sample various sets of simulation parameters in rapid succession by showing 8 simulation outputs at a time. If any of the 8 outputs appear to be even a crude match to the actual merger image, a user can click on it and highlight it for further study.

**Galaxy Zoo: Supernovae**
Our quarry forthe hunt are supernovae; exploding stars at the end of their lives. Although caused by a single stellar system, the brightness of a single supernova can easily outshine the rest of its host galaxy. These enormous outbursts then fade slowly over the course of a month or two. Most supernovae are caused by the collapse of massive stars which have come to the end of their lives. A small star like the Sun will fade with not a bang but a whimper as it runs out of fuel to power the nuclear fusion at its core, but stars with a mass several times that of the sun will have a more dramatic ending. Their core will collapse, producing a supernova explosion — these events are called core collapse supernovae

**Moon Zoo**
Moon Zoo is a collective effort to study the lunar surface in unprecedented detail. Thanks to the help of the Moon Zoo community, 3,126,746 images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have already been classified.

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**Solar Stormwatch**
Spot explosions on the Sun and track them across space to Earth with data from the STEREO satellites. Information from Solar Stormwatch will give astronauts an early warning if dangerous solar radiation is headed their way.

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**Milky Way Project**
The Milky Way Project aims to sort and measure our galaxy. Understanding the cold, dusty material that we see in these images, helps scientists to learn how stars form and how our galaxy changes and evolves with time. You've been finding bubbles in our Galaxy for over a year - and created astronomy's largest catalogue of bubbles. Now we want your help in refining and improving that catalogue.

**Upcoming: [|Lens Zoo]**
What’s a gravitational lens, you might ask? When a massive galaxy or cluster of galaxies lies right in front of a more distant galaxy, the light from the background source gets deflected and focused towards us. These space-bending massive galaxies allow us to peer into the distant Universe at around 10x magnification, and to make accurate measurements of the total (dark and luminous) mass of galaxies.

**Retired: Ice Hunters**
The ultimate goal of IceHunters is to discover Kuiper Belt Objects with just the right orbit and just the right characteristics to make them eligible for a visit from the New Horizons mission. At this time, the space probe has enough fuel in reserve to allow up to two different objects to be visited. Trying to find one or two objects that the mission can visit is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack that also contains a bunch of pins. Astronomers working with the mission team are taking thousands of images, each of which contains tens of thousands of stars, along with many asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects on orbits that cannot be reached by the spacecraft. All these objects must be sifted through to find the desired KBOs. While all these other objects are making it hard to find the final destination of New Horizons, they do represent potential bonus science for you and for the planetary science community.

(For all of you Nordic scientists out there...) media type="youtube" key="REkxVyvYXAI" height="315" width="560"