Andromeda Project

PROJECT

Url:https://www.zooniverse.org/project/andromedaproject
Start date: 2012/12/04
End date: 2013/12/05
Infrastructure: Zooniverse

TEAM

Official team page:http://www.andromedaproject.org/#!/about/people/science-team
Leader: Julianne Dalcanton
Institution: University of Washington
Partner institutions: Adler Planetarium, GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array, Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury, Hubble, Zooniverse
Contact: http://talk.andromedaproject.org/ or https://twitter.com/andromedaproj
Main location: University of Washington

PROJECT DEFINITION

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Subject

Natural sciences > astronomy, astrophysics (space)

Description

The Andromeda galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. Using PHAT data from the Hubble Space Telescope we're hunting for star clusters in Andromeda and hidden galaxies that lie behind.

Purpose.

Star clusters are collections of hundreds to millions of stars that were born at the same time from the same cloud of gas. This shared origin makes star clusters unique tools for understanding how stars form and evolve. Additionally, they are useful for studying the major chapters in the history of galaxies. But before Andromeda's star clusters can unlock these secrets, we need the help of Citizen Scientists to find the clusters. Not just the big bright ones, but the small faint ones as well. This is the goal of the Andromeda Project.

Research question.

Star clusters vary greatly in terms of mass, size, age, and local environment. As a result, star clusters can appear quite different from one another depending on the properties of the clusters and where they are located in the galaxy. This makes the process of identifying clusters tricky and difficult to automate. From the first year of PHAT data, a team of eight astronomers searched through each image, manually identifying star clusters by eye. Using less than 1/5th the total PHAT survey area, we cataloged about 600 star clusters (Johnson+ 2012). With the Andromeda Project, we hope that you will help us find the thousands of star clusters hiding in the rest of the survey! Because the appearances of star clusters vary so much, it is important for us to learn what kinds of clusters we can actually see. For this reason, we have inserted realistic synthetic clusters with known ages, masses, and sizes into some of the PHAT images. By identifying both real and synthetic clusters, we will learn what types of clusters are undetectable in Andromeda. This information is critical for understanding the age and mass distributions of the clusters by allowing us to determine whether certain populations of clusters do not exist or if they are simply avoiding detection. After you help us to find these star clusters, we will use several techniques to determine the age and mass of these objects. In some clusters, we can resolve individual stars that allow us to determine the age, mass, and other aspects of the object. In other clusters, where individual stars are too faint or too close together, we can use the summed light from a cluster to determine its properties (Fouesneau+ 2012, in prep.). With these ages and masses in hand, we can use these clusters to study a host of interesting topics: rapid and rare stages of stellar evolution, the structure and scale of star formation, the evolution of cluster populations, and how Andromeda has changed over billions of years.

ABOUT PARTICIPANT TASKS

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Tasks description.

Mark interesting features with circles and crosses.

Interaction with system objects.

Users must identify star clusters in photographs taken of the Andromeda galaxy.

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: puzzle	Gaming elements:
Interface
Data type to manipulate: pictures	interface enjoyment: somewhat cool/attractive Interface usability: somewhat difficult to use	Member profiles::minimal Member profile elements: other

ABOUT GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK

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

.

COMMUNITY

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Tools	News & Events
Communication: website, blog, forum, chat Social Network: Twitter, Facebook	Main news site: http://talk.andromedaproject.org/chat Frequency of project news updates: weekly Type of events: Frequency of events : 0
Community description
Community size (volounteers based): Role: Forum participation and community problem solving/discussion Interaction form:Forum chat Has official community manager(s): maybe Has team work no

Other information about community:
Community led additions: 2013/12/05

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION

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Capture d’écran 2013-11-14 à 15.17.15.png No [[has completion level::High]

http://www.andromedaproject.org/#!/about/people/science-team Not explicitely specified University of Washington http://talk.andromedaproject.org/ or https://twitter.com/andromedaproj

No astronomy, astrophysics Natural sciences space Star clusters are collections of hundreds to millions of stars that were born at the same time from the same cloud of gas. This shared origin makes star clusters unique tools for understanding how stars form and evolve. Additionally, they are useful for studying the major chapters in the history of galaxies. But before Andromeda's star clusters can unlock these secrets, we need the help of Citizen Scientists to find the clusters. Not just the big bright ones, but the small faint ones as well. This is the goal of the Andromeda Project. Star clusters vary greatly in terms of mass, size, age, and local environment. As a result, star clusters can appear quite different from one another depending on the properties of the clusters and where they are located in the galaxy. This makes the process of identifying clusters tricky and difficult to automate. From the first year of PHAT data, a team of eight astronomers searched through each image, manually identifying star clusters by eye. Using less than 1/5th the total PHAT survey area, we cataloged about 600 star clusters (Johnson+ 2012). With the Andromeda Project, we hope that you will help us find the thousands of star clusters hiding in the rest of the survey!

Because the appearances of star clusters vary so much, it is important for us to learn what kinds of clusters we can actually see. For this reason, we have inserted realistic synthetic clusters with known ages, masses, and sizes into some of the PHAT images. By identifying both real and synthetic clusters, we will learn what types of clusters are undetectable in Andromeda. This information is critical for understanding the age and mass distributions of the clusters by allowing us to determine whether certain populations of clusters do not exist or if they are simply avoiding detection.

After you help us to find these star clusters, we will use several techniques to determine the age and mass of these objects. In some clusters, we can resolve individual stars that allow us to determine the age, mass, and other aspects of the object. In other clusters, where individual stars are too faint or too close together, we can use the summed light from a cluster to determine its properties (Fouesneau+ 2012, in prep.). With these ages and masses in hand, we can use these clusters to study a host of interesting topics: rapid and rare stages of stellar evolution, the structure and scale of star formation, the evolution of cluster populations, and how Andromeda has changed over billions of years. International Andromeda Project Mark interesting features with circles and crosses. data analysis, data interpretation

distributed intelligence pictures, other: Thinking: yes Computing: no Sensing: no Gaming: no

puzzle Users must identify star clusters in photographs taken of the Andromeda galaxy. somewhat cool/attractive somewhat difficult to use somewhat no no N/A yes N/A

minimal other maybe website, blog, forum, chat Twitter, Facebook

0 http://talk.andromedaproject.org/chat

weekly

Forum participation and community problem solving/discussion Forum chat no Twitter and Zooniverse AMA on reddit n/a High

Project has been retired, with some hopes of new data for 2014 to resurrect it. Project is very active and successful when where is new data to classify, but otherwise quiet.

BIBLIOGRAPHY