Galaxy Zoo

PROJECT

Url:http://www.galaxyzoo.org/
Start date: 2007/07/12
End date: Still open
Infrastructure: Zooniverse

TEAM

Official team page:http://www.galaxyzoo.org/#/team
Leader: Chris Lintott
Institution: oxford university


Main location: University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK

PROJECT DEFINITION

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Subject

Natural sciences > Astronomy (space)

Description

Galaxy Zoo is an online astronomy project which invites people to assist in the morphological classification of large numbers of galaxies.

Purpose.

The main purpose is to understand how galaxies formed. According to the Galaxy Zoo team : “"Galaxies come in very different shapes and have very different properties. they may be large or small, old or young, red or blue, regular or confused, luminous or faint, dusty or gas-poor, rotating or static, round or disky, and they live either in splendid isolation or in clusters. In other words, the universe contains a very colourful and diverse zoo of galaxies. For almost a century, astronomers have been discussing how galaxies should be classified and how they relate to each other in an attempt to attack the big question of how galaxies form."” The classification of images in Galaxy Zoo would help scientists to understand the structure of the universe and determine whether there is anything "fundamentally wrong" with existing galaxy models.

Research question.

Some research questions

• Theorists believe that spiral galaxies can merge and become ellipticals and vice versa if they receive more gas or stars.
• Professor Michael Longo of the University of Michigan finds that there is a clear pattern of preferred spiral galaxy spins (or handedness) see article on http://arxiv.org. If the rotation of spiral galaxies is not random, it would force a major rethink of cosmology (potentially Nobel Prize implications). see forum discussion

ABOUT PARTICIPANT TASKS

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Tasks description.

Volunteers users have to work with images taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey program. They decide whether the galaxies are elliptical or spiral and report if they have features like having spiral arm pattern bar or have undergone transformations. Volunteers can also decide to discuss image wich will appear then on a community wall.

Interaction with system objects.

Volunteers don't manipule images, they just have to answer questions about it. However participants can add images to their favourite and present, comment, discuss their image to the community. Volunteer can experience a kind of particular relation with data.

Grey typology	Participation typology	Contribution type:
Computing: NO Thinking: YES Sensing: NO Gaming: NO	Crowdsourcing ☑ Distributed intelligence ☐ Participatory science ☐ Extreme citizen science ☐ Science outreach ☐	Data collection ☐ Data analysis ☐ Data interpretation ☑--------
Gaming
Genre:	Gaming elements: challenges
Interface
Data type to manipulate: pictures	interface enjoyment: somewhat cool/attractive Interface usability: easy to use	Member profiles::minimal Member profile elements: pseudo, activity metrics, other

ABOUT GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK

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Guidance	Feedback on
Tutorial and documentation: NO Training sequence: NO Peer to peer guidance: YES	individual performance: Somewhat collective performance: Somewhat research progress: Somewhat

Feedback and guidance description.

No training sequence, no tutorial, but

• a an access to a contextual help at each step of the classification process.
• Peer-to-peer guidance through an active forum attached to Galaxy Zoo.
• The number of image classification is the only indivual perfomance information that volounteers can access in their profil page. No feedback about it.

COMMUNITY

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Tools	News & Events
Communication: website, blog, forum Social Network: Twitter, Facebook, other	Main news site: Frequency of project news updates: N/A Type of events: Frequency of events :
Community description
Community size (volounteers based): Role: Share interests, share news about space research... Interaction form: Has official community manager(s): yes Has team work no

Other information about community: Volunteers are active on the Galaxy Zoo forum. They post the more striking images and discuss what they are. There are already some interesting results.
Community led additions:

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION

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GalaxieZoo.png Yes [[has completion level::High]

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/#/team None. Use the forum. University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK

Yes Astronomy Natural sciences space The main purpose is to understand how galaxies formed. According to the Galaxy Zoo team : “"Galaxies come in very different shapes and have very different properties. they may be large or small, old or young, red or blue, regular or confused, luminous or faint, dusty or gas-poor, rotating or static, round or disky, and they live either in splendid isolation or in clusters. In other words, the universe contains a very colourful and diverse zoo of galaxies. For almost a century, astronomers have been discussing how galaxies should be classified and how they relate to each other in an attempt to attack the big question of how galaxies form."” The classification of images in Galaxy Zoo would help scientists to understand the structure of the universe and determine whether there is anything "fundamentally wrong" with existing galaxy models. [[Has research question::Some research questions

• Theorists believe that spiral galaxies can merge and become ellipticals and vice versa if they receive more gas or stars.
• Professor Michael Longo of the University of Michigan finds that there is a clear pattern of preferred spiral galaxy spins (or handedness) see article on http://arxiv.org. If the rotation of spiral galaxies is not random]], [[Has research question::it would force a major rethink of cosmology (potentially Nobel Prize implications). see forum discussion]]

Galaxy Zoo Volunteers users have to work with images taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey program. They decide whether the galaxies are elliptical or spiral and report if they have features like having spiral arm pattern bar or have undergone transformations. Volunteers can also decide to discuss image wich will appear then on a community wall. data interpretation

crowdsourcing pictures, other: Thinking: yes Computing: no Sensing: no Gaming: no challenges

Volunteers don't manipule images, they just have to answer questions about it. However participants can add images to their favourite and present, comment, discuss their image to the community. Volunteer can experience a kind of particular relation with data. somewhat cool/attractive easy to use no yes no N/A N/A N/A No training sequence, no tutorial, but

• a an access to a contextual help at each step of the classification process.
• Peer-to-peer guidance through an active forum attached to Galaxy Zoo.
• The number of image classification is the only indivual perfomance information that volounteers can access in their profil page. No feedback about it.

minimal pseudo, activity metrics, other yes website, blog, forum Twitter, Facebook, other

N/A Volunteers are active on the Galaxy Zoo forum. They post the more striking images and discuss what they are. There are already some interesting results. Share interests, share news about space research...

no

High

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BIBLIOGRAPHY