Galaxy Zoo Talk

How does this help real scientists?

  • doylem by doylem

    I am classifying objects for an assignment in a course I am taking in school and I was wondering how I am helping real scientists by making these classifications?

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  • Budgieye by Budgieye moderator

    Welcome, doylem.

    Yes, you are definitely helping. Computers do much of the work, but software can't analyze the images.

    For example, computers cannot see the difference between a 2 armed galaxy and a 4 armed galaxy. So if a researcher wants to understand how 4 armed galaxies form, the researcher would need a collection of both kinds of galaxies to compare. So the researcher would just go into the SDSS database, and do a search for galaxies that classifiers have listed as 2 or 4 armed. If you look at this galaxy in a later version of SDSS dr14, you will see on the left is a link to Galaxy Zoo

    http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr14/en/tools/explore/Summary.aspx?id=1237648722840715469

    7.8 computer recognition of galaxies https://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000001/discussions/DGZ0000wrb?page=7

    Also, classifiers can start to recognize unusual and new things. The usual examples are Hanny's Vorwerp and Green Peas, discovered by classifiers, who started talking about them.

    3.5 Hanny's Voorwerp https://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000001/discussions/DGZ0000wrb?page=3

    3.8 Green peas, compact starburst, Blue compact starburst , OIII objects https://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000001/discussions/DGZ0000wrb?page=3&comment_id=53d8b93a0d43f77bb6000f98

    There are lots of objects that computers can't recognize... overlaps, polar rings, irregular galaxies. Even for detecting supernovae, it needs a human to agree. Many "galaxies" that the computer finds, are actually two stars that are close together, and the software can't even tell the difference. A star=round, a galaxy=not round, 2 close stars=not round=galaxy.

    There is certainly one thing that computers can't do, and that is find something that is to find something that is usual. Computers can only find things that they are programmed to find.

    Here is the site to access the Galaxy Zoo data

    https://data.galaxyzoo.org/

    Blog: Galaxy Zoo classifications in SDSS Database January 12, 2011 by karenlmasters http://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2011/01/12/galaxy-zoo-classifications-in-sdss-database/ " but one thing which might have passed your notice is that as part of this data release your Galaxy Zoo classifications (from the first phase of Galaxy Zoo) have been integrated into the SDSS public database (CasJobs). This will make GZ1 classifications all that more accessible for professional (and amateur?) astronomers to use in their research, "

    Publication: Galaxy Zoo 2: detailed morphological classifications for 304,122 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey by Kyle W. Willett , Chris J. Lintott , Steven P. Bamford , Karen L. Masters , Brooke D. Simmons, Kevin R.V. Casteels , Edward M. Edmondson, Lucy F. Fortson, Sugata Kaviraj , William C. Keel , Thomas Melvin, Robert C. Nichol , M. Jordan Raddick , Kevin Schawinski , Robert J. Simpson , Ramin A. Skibba , Arfon M. Smith , Daniel Thomas Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.3496 "bars, bulges, and the shapes of edge-on disks, as well as quantifying the relative strengths of galactic bulges and spiral arms."

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