Help Galaxy Zoo Reach Its Goal!

By Nancy Atkinson - April 02, 2009 05:55 PM UTC | Extragalactic

[/caption] Reminiscent of a telethon or a community fundraiser, Galaxy Zoo has challenged the public to complete one million classification clicks of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey during the

100 Hours of Astronomy.

The clock started ticking at 12:00 GMT on Wednesday, April 1st, with the challenge ending at 16:00 GMT on Sunday April 5th. The Galaxy Zoo site even includes a thermometer-like gadget called the Zoonometer to provide up-to-the minute ticks on the number of clicks. If you have just returned from a cave on Mars and haven't heard of

Galaxy Zoo,

or if you don't know what the 100 Hours of Astronomy is about, keep reading. Otherwise, head on over to

Galaxy Zoo

and start clicking!

Galaxy Zoo was launched in July 2007, with a data set of a million galaxies, imaged with a robotic telescope, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In order to understand how these galaxies formed, the idea was to get the public to help classify them according to their shapes. The human brain can do this task better than even the fastest computer. With so many galaxies, the team thought that it might take at least two years for visitors to the site to work through them all. Within 24 hours of launch, the site was receiving 70,000 classifications an hour, and more than 50 million classifications were received by the project during its first year, from almost 150,000 people. With the public's help the Zoo team has published six papers from the findings, and have received viewing time with other, bigger telescopes to clarify the discoveries.

Zoo 2 launched a few months ago, and focuses on the nearest, brightest and most beautiful galaxies, and asks users to make more detailed classifications.

100 Hours of Astronomy is an event of the

International Year of Astronomy

that wants to get as many people as possible to look through a telescope - just as Galileo did 400 years ago. This four-day event encompasses astronomy clubs, groups, individuals, observatories, science centers and more around the world as they reach out to the public to achieve this common goal. There's lots of great events, so check out

Tammy's article to find out more,

or check out the

100 Hours of Astronomy website

– but hurry – you've only got until Sunday April 5th to participate!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com