GalaxyZoo.org: Your Chance to Do Real Science
Once upon a time, astronomy was done by some lone astronomer, sitting at an eyepiece or at a light table in front of hundreds of photographic plates looking for patterns, movement, or classifying and cataloguing things.
Usually, one person (or an astronomer employing dozens of women at 25 cents per hour) would sift through the enormous volume of data coming from the telescope and try to make some sense of it.
Nowadays, that’s just not practical. There is simply too much data coming in from all the telescopes and space probes looking at the universe for one person, or even a small team of scientists, to get through.
I mean, one project can take more images that can be viewed in one human lifetime, even if you only looked at each one for only a minute. And it’s only going to get worse.
Put simply, astronomers are going to either need more computers, which are notoriously bad at classifying and cataloguing objects reliably, or more people, who are very good at such things.
By getting hundreds or even thousands of people looking at datasets, more science can be done with the collected results, using the astronomer’s time more efficiently. Gone are the days of the lonely astronomer sitting alone in the dark looking at pictures (hmmm, something about that didn’t come out right, that’s not the right image I wanted to convey).
With the advent of CCD’s, cheap large aperture telescopes, and the internet, amateurs have been making valuable contributions to astronomy for some time now. The internet in particular allows for the archiving and distribution of massive datasets and surveys to become easily viewable by large numbers of people.
These people, people like you and me, can then go out and look at the data and help make simple, well-defined measurements that would take much too long for astronomers to do on their own.
These ‘Pro-Am’ collaborations are particularly important in astronomy, there’s just too much data out there to properly analyze by the scientific community alone, so they often ask for help.
GalaxyZoo.org is one such effort. Cosmologist Kate Land of the University of Oxford and her team are asking for help in classifying galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the largest digital map of the universe.
The astronomers hope that the survey will shed light on how different kinds of galaxies are distributed across the sky. The results might even reveal that there is something fundamentally wrong with existing models of the universe.
See? I told you we don’t need more models, what we need is analysis from actual data either confirming or refuting those models.
Using GalaxyZoo’s interface is quite easy. After I signed up, I went through the tutorial and the test trial which made me get a certain number of known classifications before I could analyze the real data.
Luckily I passed, whew.
Here’s a screengrab of the interface:
Click on image to see larger view
The interface is trivial to use and is a great example to others looking to do something similar.
Classifying the galaxies however, is NOT trivial. Some of them are quite faint and it isn’t immediately obvious if what you’re looking at is an edge-on spiral or an elliptical galaxy. So whatever you do, take your time and think about what you’re looking at. That’s what you’re getting paid to do, so don’t rush it (Ok, you’re not getting paid to do it, but you know what I mean).
I’m convinced this is the future of astronomy. With the overwhelming volume of data that are being taken from our telescopes and instruments, either automated software is going to have to get WAY better at this (which it will over time) or actual eyeballs will need to look at every image ever taken so we can understand what the images are showing us.
The short term solution is more eyeballs. Human beings are really good at spotting patterns, so it is very easy to throw large numbers of human brains at the problem than it is trying to program software to do it reliably.
Of course, humans are easily fooled too. They often see patterns that aren’t there, or that they wish were there but aren’t. Software, when it does become more reliable, can serve as a check on that.
Right now, the servers seem a little overwhelmed and started crashing on me so I haven’t done very many galaxies. I’m sure that’ll settle after the newness wears off though.
So Space Fans, get out there and start contributing to our knowledge of the universe. Astronomers need your help, get off of Digg and start digging for galaxies.
Technorati Tags: astronomy education, astronomy simulations, becoming an astronomer, cosmology, galaxies, galaxyzoo, pro-am collaborations
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POSTED IN: cosmology, general astronomy
7 opinions for GalaxyZoo.org: Your Chance to Do Real Science
Tom Harrison
Jul 22, 2007 at 11:44 am
I have taken the “Trial” three times and just as I think I am getting to the next phase, I get pulled from the site So far I have only got as far as the trial and would be delighted to participate but so far, to no good effect Am I the only one this has happened to ?????.
Tom Harrison
Jul 22, 2007 at 11:46 am
So far, I have only been able to get as far as passing the trial and immediately after the “congratulations” message, the website closes down on me. Am I the only one this is happenong to??????
Mike Neal
Aug 5, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Sounds a good way to handle and classify the data.
Mark OConnell
Sep 21, 2007 at 6:55 pm
I have classified over 5000 images so far. Here’s what I have found out. Ringed galaxies are not uncommon. There are roughly 8000 galaxy combinations where one galaxy is over lapped by another. I have found out that scientist use these kinds of galaxies to calculate how much dust is in them. Seems there might really be more anti-clockwise spirals then clockwise, but that will be properly analysed by Kate. There are very interesting and unusual objects in this small survey of the universe. I can distinguish between the following types of galaxies now: clockwise, anti-clockwise, eliptical, lenticular, irregular, dwarfs which are futher devided into these same types of galaxies, but no lenticular dwarfs yet. I can determine ringed galaxies, as well as barrel galaxies. By sight alone I can tell if things are quasars, but maybe not better then a 75% chance at getting it right.
Looking at the solan’s website I know where to look to get the red shift information and also to tell by the red shift which they say “Z” number if the item is inside our galaxy or outside of it. I still have yet to tell the distance away but I will get that.
I learnt most of the though by frequenting the Forum and the list goes on of the things I learned or learned better as a result
About the only thing I new about them before was that there were clockwise and anti-clockwise galaxies.
Garry Robson
Oct 5, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I have a ’silly’ question for Kate:
Is it not simply a matter of perspective as to whether a galaxy presents as an anti-clockwise spiral or a clockwise spiral? For instance, relative to the galaxies pole, will not the same anti-clockwise spiral appear as a clockwise spiral from the opposite pole? Moreover, if we accept that galaxies are changing their orientations relative to their axis over their life time; would it not be possible for a galaxy to present as an anti-clockwise spiral in one instance of time (relative to a theoretical fixed observer in space) and present as an clockwise spiral in another instance in time?
Garry Robson
Oct 5, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I have a silly question for Kate:
Is it not simply a matter of perspective as to whether a galaxy presents as an anti-clockwise spiral or a clockwise spiral? For instance, relative to the galaxies pole, will not the same anti-clockwise spiral appear as a clockwise spiral from the opposite pole? Moreover, if we accept that galaxies are changing their orientations relative to their axis over their life time; would it not be possible for a galaxy to present as an anti-clockwise spiral in one instance of time (relative to a theoretical fixed observer in space) and present as an clockwise spiral in another instance in time?
Des Emery
Oct 22, 2007 at 5:41 pm
When we are looking at a clock from in front of it, we see the hands moving in a ‘clockwise’ direction. BUT, when we look at a clock from a position behind it (hardly ever), we see the hands moving in a counter-clockwise direction.
Galaxies in a ’spiral’ mode may be part of an expanding universe but are still participating in a tumultuous universe, presenting one side or the other toward our observation point, at 180 degrees; they can be edge-on, 90 degrees of inclination, or any degree of inclination from 1 to 360. The same description applies to other shaped galaxies but we will have to determine the axis of rotation before we can determine the relative position of each galaxy, especially the globular types, which look the same from any direction.
But cataloging as many galaxies as possible will enable us to sort them out by type, and age, composition, etc., another step for us along the way to satisfying our quest for knowledge.
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