Citizen Science

Galaxy Zoo hosts two datasets for you to explore: images of real galaxies, from a survey called DeCALS and images of galaxies generated in a computer simulation called EAGLE.

DeCALS is a state-of-the-art which maps galaxies over an area covering one third of the sky. You can see parts of the survey using the SkyViewer. This survey is the starting point for a new survey that astronomers at Durham are part of, called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey or DESI for short. DESI will measure the distances to 5000 galaxies at a time. The survey started earlier in 2021 (link). Our PhD students have been helping to set up this survey (link).

The Galaxy Zoo project has been running for 10 years, and over 69000 people have helped out. The DeCALS data has only recently been added to Galaxy Zoo and there are many more galaxies to look at than before (link). Volunteers are asked to assign labels to galaxies, to help classify them into different types. This information can then be used by astronomers to study how different types of galaxies are made.

As well as looking at real galaxies, volunteers can also look at galaxies made in a supercomputer, taken from the EAGLE simulation project, a collaboration between researchers from Leiden University and Durham University (link).

If you enjoy Galaxy Zoo, have a look through its parent site, Zooniverse, which contains many citizen science projects across different science areas. You can find out more about the award winning team behind Galaxy Zoo here.