Hey, monkey...

Jim Downey's picture

Humans are still much better than computers with many types of pattern recognition. And a new effort called Galaxy Zoo is tapping into that ability, and the desire of many people to participate in scientific endeavours, to help sorting out images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. From the press release on the site:

Astronomers are inviting members of the public to help them make major new discoveries by taking part in a census of one million galaxies.

Visitors to www.galaxyzoo.org will get to see stunning images of galaxies, most of which have never been viewed by human eyes before. By sorting these images into “spiral galaxies” (like our own Milky Way) or “elliptical galaxies”, visitors will help astronomers to understand the structure of the universe. The new digital images were taken using the robotic Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope in New Mexico.

‘It’s not just for fun’ said Kevin Schawinski of Astrophysics at Oxford University where the data will be analysed. ‘The human brain is actually better than a computer at pattern recognition tasks like this. Whether you spend five minutes, fifteen minutes or five hours using the site your contribution will be invaluable.’ Visitors will be able to print out posters of the galaxies they have explored and even compete to see who’s the best virtual astronomer.

So, put your monkey brain to work in a good cause. You're better at this than any current expert system or artificial intelligence program. Go sign up - Pretty pictures await.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted with minor changes from my blog.)

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Michael Mueller's picture

There are really great

There are really great photos of galaxies in the database. And you can be the one who classifies one. So I think, if you spend here 15 minutes you will not only help the scientifical world but also will enjoy your time!

Hank Fox's picture

Woo-hoo!

I got 14 out of 15 on the test! I'm checked out to chart the heavens!

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