Andromeda Project

PROJECT

Url:https://www.zooniverse.org/project/andromedaproject
Start date:
End date: Still open

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/
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.

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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:
Interface
Data type to manipulate: pictures	interface enjoyment: cool/attractive Interface usability: easy to use	Member profiles::N/A Member profile elements:

ABOUT GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK

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

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COMMUNITY

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Tools	News & Events
Communication: website, blog, forum Social Network: Twitter	Main news site: Frequency of project news updates: N/A Type of events: Frequency of events :
Community description
Community size (volounteers based): Role: Interaction form: Has official community manager(s): N/A Has team work N/A

Other information about community:
Community led additions:

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION

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Capture d’écran 2013-11-14 à 15.17.15.png Yes [[has completion level::Medium]

http://www.andromedaproject.org/#!/about/people/science-team

University of Washington http://talk.andromedaproject.org/

Yes 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.

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

cool/attractive easy to use yes no no N/A N/A N/A

N/A

N/A website, blog, forum Twitter

N/A

N/A

Medium

BIBLIOGRAPHY