I just stumbled across a new project from the bright kids at Oxford University. Galaxy Zoo is a project where users get to help identify images of galaxies, most of which have never been viewed by human eyes before.

Images for the project are taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which uses a 142-megapixel digital camera to create the largest digital map of the universe.

The astronomers hope that the survey will shed light on how different kinds of galaxies are distributed across the sky. The results might even reveal that there is something fundamentally wrong with existing models of the universe.


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.

Visit Galaxy Zoo