Citizen Science

After classifying about 100 galaxies, my eyes hurt, my brain is mush and I need a nap. With all the aftermath aside, this was so cool! I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the pictures and classifying and learning all the terms and ways to classify these pictures! I personally did not have any unusual or new galaxies which was a bummer. I can only imagine coming across a picture that could not be classified. The task was fairly simple, answer the questions according to the pictures. It got a bit tedious and repetitive at times but when a different type of galaxy came up, it was nice to have some different answers. 

            With the Zooniverse project, I choose to classify stars with planets around them. It had a short tutorial about what to look for and how to mark the data. Again, it was very simple and to the point but very tedious work. I did not classify as many of these as I did galaxies but it was pretty much the same. I got bored fairly quickly and was not as into the classifying as I was with the galaxies.

            Citizen science is a very interesting concept and I think as a whole, it can be very beneficial. It is clear that these scientists have so much data that they need some help that a computer cannot do. Citizen science helps them and can be very beneficial to the scientific community. We all know that galaxy zoo has enabled average people to discover new types of galaxies, that is just cool.