image via Lunar and Planetary Institute and G. Bacon (STScI)

A citizen science project around classifying high resolution images of craters and various parts of the lunar surface taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) via the Planetary Data System (PDS). From billion-year-old volcanic eruptions and curving lava channels to recent asteroid impacts, the images you classify will help advance lunar science – providing new insights into the geological history of the Moon. Your help is also needed in identifying which parts of the Moon are covered with boulders so as to create lunar landing hazard maps for future spacecraft and human exploration missions. Of course, in exploring the lunar surface, who knows what else you might find – the hope is that Moon Zoo will lead to the discovery of many unusual features.

Craters on the lunar surface stay almost until eternity due to the lack of weather-based erosion, thus the number of craters on a surface area tells how old it is.  This technique is used all over the Solar System, but the Moon is particularly important because of a ground truth — samples brought back by the Apollo missions — which allow for calibrating any estimates. You can see examples of these types of things on the tutorial page.

Project owners + coordinators:
Moon Zoo team, team@moonzoo.org

To learn more and participate, visit: http://moonzoo.org

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• follow @moonzoo
• read blogs.zooniverse.org/moonzoo
• join forum.moonzoo.org

Photo by NASA

Learn how to spot solar explosions and track them across space to Earth. Your work could make a new scientific discovery as well as give astronauts an early warning if dangerous radiation is headed their way. You’ll also find out how to pinpoint comets, particle strikes and optical effects, and how to make detailed storm measurements.

Even on a quiet day, the Sun’s a whirling ball of energy – intense magnetic fields churn and pummel its atmosphere. But sometimes, huge solar explosions hurl billions of tons of material across the solar system and out into space. Scientists call them coronal mass ejections, or CMEs for short. We call them solar storms – and scientists need your help to discover how they begin and evolve, as well as forecast their arrival time at Earth.

Solar storms on a collision course with Earth are harmful to astronauts in orbit and have the potential to knock out communication satellites, disrupt mobile phone networks and damage power lines. On the plus side, they also spark the beautiful atmospheric reactions better known as the northern and southern lights, or aurora.

The project uses near-real time data from space. Every hour NASA’s STEREO spacecraft, a pair of satellites in orbit around the Sun, send a compressed ‘beacon mode’ data packet back to Earth. This means you can help detect Earth-bound solar storms up to three days before they reach us. These detections get pinged to Twitter as a space weather forecast.

Solar Stormwatch was created by The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in partnership with the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Zooniverse (the Galaxy Zoo team at Oxford University).

Project owners + coordinators:
Fiona Romeo, Royal Observatory Greenwich
Natasha Waterson, Royal Observatory Greenwich


To learn more and participate, visit: http://solarstormwatch.com

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• follow @solarstormwatch
• read blogs.zooniverse.org/solarstormwatch
• join forum.solarstormwatch.com
• look at flickr.com/photos/solarstormwatch

Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@Home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth.

Nestled within the Stardust spacecraft’s capsule in 2006 were precious particles collected during its dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 and something else, even rarer and no less precious: tiny particles of interstellar dust that originate in distant stars, light-years away. They are the first such pristine particles ever collected in space, and scientists are eagerly waiting for their chance to “get their hands” on them.

Before they can be studied, though, these tiny interstellar grains will have to be found. This will not be easy. They are tiny-only about a micron (a millionth of a meter) in size! These miniscule particles are embedded in an aerogel collector 1,000 square centimeters in size. To make things worse the collector plates are interspersed with flaws, cracks, and an uneven surface. All this makes the interstellar dust particles extremely difficult to locate.

If we were doing this project twenty years ago, we would have searched for the tracks through a high-magnification microscope. Because the view of the microscope is so small, we would have to move the microscope more than 1.6 million times to search the whole collector.  This is so much work, that even starting twenty years ago, we would still be doing it today!

This is where you come in:
By asking for help from talented volunteers like you from all over the world, we can do this project in months instead of years. To find the elusive particles we are using an automated scanning microscope to automatically collect images of the entire Stardust interstellar collector at the Curatorial Facility at Johnson Space Center in Houston. We call these stacks of images focus movies. All in all there will be nearly a million such focus movies. These are available to Stardust@home users like you around the world. You can then view them with the aid of a special Virtual Microscope (VM) that works in your web browser.

In recognition of the critical importance of the Stardust@home volunteers, the discoverer of an interstellar dust particle will appear as a co-author on any scientific paper by the Stardust@home collaboration announcing the discovery of the particle. The discoverer will also have the privilege of naming the particle! To also recognize the efforts of our volunteers who work hard, but may not have found a particle, we will invite the top-ranked volunteers to come visit our lab in Berkeley for a special tour. (Unfortunately, we are legally precluded from covering travel expenses.)

Project owners + coordinators:
The Stardust@Home Team

To participate and learn more, visit: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• join stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum

A project that allows individuals or groups to dedicate some portion of their time to analyzing data taken with other people’s telescopes. The Global Telescope Network is a network of small telescopes around the world for the purpose of supporting the science of NASA and ESA high energy astrophysics missions, including XMM-Newton, Swift and GLAST. These missions are designed to study astronomical objects through their emission of x-rays and gamma rays. However, much can be learned by combining observations over a broad range in the electromagnetic spectrum. The GTN has been assembled to make observations in the optical that will compliment the observations done at higher energies by space-borne observatories.

Project owners + coordinators:
Dr. Kevin McLin

To learn more, visit: http://gtn.sonoma.edu

To participate, visit: http://gtn.sonoma.edu/join/index.php

A citizen science project that needs volunteers to classify images of almost a quarter of a million galaxies taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope.

Your job is very simple! All you need to do is look out for the features that mark out spiral and elliptical galaxies. There’s a tutorial showing how to classify galaxies according to shape (elliptical, spiral or irregular) and rotation (clockwise or anti-clockwise).

Those involved are directly contributing to scientific research, while getting an opportunity to view the beautiful and varied galaxies that inhabit our universe. Why does Galaxy Zoo need people to do this, rather than just using a computer? The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns than a computer. Galaxies are complicated objects that vary in appearance enormously, and yet in some ways they can be very similar.

More than 150,000 people have taken part in Galaxy Zoo so far, producing a wealth of valuable data and sending telescopes on Earth and in space chasing after their discoveries. Zoo 2 focuses on the nearest, brightest and most beautiful galaxies, so to begin exploring the Universe, click the ‘How To Take Part’ link, or read ‘The Story So Far’ to find out what Galaxy Zoo has achieved to date.

Getting all these galaxy classifications is just the first stage of the project. What Galaxy Zoo really wants to do is some science, to try and understand what kind of galaxies there are, how they formed, and the processes that have changed them into the systems we see today. The journey from raw classifications to accepted scientific results is often long and arduous.

Project owners + coordinators:
Galaxy Zoo Team, team@galaxyzoo.org

To learn more and participate, visit: http://galaxyzoo.org

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• follow @galaxyzoo
• read galaxyzooblog.org
• join galaxyzooforum.org

A virtual laboratory for scientists and engineers to disseminate results and collaborate on research problems in health management technologies for aeronautics systems.

DASHlink (Discovery in Aeronautics Systems Health) supports innovation by allowing researchers to overcome the limitations of distance and disparate specialties, and by providing access to the latest research, discussion forums, aviation data sets, and data analysis algorithms.

Project owners + coordinators:
Dawn McIntosh, team lead
Francesca Barrientos, PhD, website design lead
Elizabeth Foughty, outreach lead
Chris Fattarsi, website development lead
Dave Kluck, website programmer
Sergey Yentus, website programmer
Bryan Matthews, website design
Ray McIntosh, graphic artist
Eric Titolo, website design

To learn more, visit: https://dashlink.arc.nasa.gov

To participate, register at: https://dashlink.arc.nasa.gov/registration
(note: if you don’t know a NASA civil servant click on the Contact Us link and describe your background and interest in working with NASA)

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• join dashlink.arc.nasa.gov/topic

The PlanetQuest Collaboratory will turn your computer (Mac, PC, Linux, and others) into a virtual astronomical observatory that you can use to make and share real scientific discoveries. Our telescopes are focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius, and when an observing run ends and thousands of images have been collected, data will be downloaded to your computer and your Collaboratory software will begin analyzing it. You can classify stars no one has cataloged before, use the Collaboratory to do your own research, and maybe even find a new planet! The project is currently in development and alpha testing.

PQ Collaboratory has the world’s first automated rapid light curve production facility, which you can watch as it works on your data. It takes raw pixel data from observations and corrects and normalizes, given input constraints and PlanetQuest optimization algorithms. The Stellar Neighborhood Explorer module allows users to explore the region around the star they are currently working on. It uses RA and Dec coordinates to overlay onto a navigable starmap, giving you an opportunity to explore the neighborhood and learn about the nearby stellar bodies and formations around them. Additionally, the Planet Formation Modeling is an optional experiment that allows you to run hypothesis tests using given mathematical models to understand how and why planets form. The Collaboratory returns the degree of correlation for given models, allowing you to help scientists learn how and why planets form!

Interact and see who’s working on stars nearby you in the sky and strike up a conversation! You can meet friends while you learn about the universe together. Create science teams with your new friends. Collaborate with other astronomers around the world to track and report on astronomical events. The Collaboratory provides an easy way to record your observations and share your discoveries with the world!

Project owners + coordinators:
info@planetquest.org

To learn more and participate, visit: http://planetquest.org/download

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• subscribe to planetquest.org/newsletter.html

Help NASA get astronauts to the Moon and Mars. Future space exploration will challenge NASA to answer many critical questions about how humans can live and work for extended missions away from Earth. Currently, researchers are working to reduce the effects of space flight on the human body. To accomplish this, researchers study healthy test subjects from the general population on Earth, in a way that causes some of the changes the body goes through while traveling in space without gravity. By eliciting on Earth physiologic responses similar to those experienced by the human body in space, scientists can test and refine theories and procedures to deepen our understanding and develop countermeasures to protect humans from the effects of space travel.

In the Flight Analogs Project investigations, volunteers are in a controlled research environment, spending 21 to 87 days in bed, in the Flight Analog Research Center located within the General Clinical Research Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston, Texas). Individuals selected for screening will receive a physical examination at no cost. Once medically qualified, subjects will be compensated for their time spent for the required psychological assessment and any additional screening. Researchers monitor how the subjects’ bodies change over the course of the study and how quickly they recover once they are allowed to resume normal activities. Two primary goals of the studies are (1) to determine which systems in the body react to the simulated limited gravity environment in the same manner that the astronauts’ bodies change in space and (2) to develop new and novel ways of preventing the adverse changes seen in the flight analogs. The methods used to prevent these adverse changes are called countermeasures and if successful, they will lead the way to new methods of counteracting the adverse effects of space travel on our astronauts.

Bed Rest Study
In order to study a person for 87 days as if they were in space without gravity, NASA scientists use head down tilt bed rest. Participants must be nonsmokers who are in good health with no history of cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, or musculoskeletal problems.

Lunar Analog Feasibility Study
Just as head down tilt bed rest has been used to study the effects of microgravity on the human body, NASA scientists are finding ways to simulate lunar gravity on Earth in the Flight Analogs Research Unit by using a head-up tilt bedrest model for a 21-day study. Daily tasks and exercises will be performed to simulate life on the moon. Participants must be 24 – 50 years of age and in general good health.

Project owners + coordinators:
Todd Schlegel, NASA official
Human Test Subject Facility

To learn more, visit: https://bedreststudy.jsc.nasa.gov/

To participate, apply at: https://bedreststudy.jsc.nasa.gov/apply.aspx

Help scientists search for landforms and identify new places to take pictures on Mars. The HiRISE camera, one of the instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has been sending back high-resolution images of Mars since late 2006. HiRISE Clickworkers was created by one part-time engineer and two very busy scientists at NASA. The project needs volunteers to prove that the public is ready, willing and able to help science so that more ambitious projects with the public may be attempted in the future.

Project owners + coordinators:
Virginia Gulick, education and public outreach lead
Bob Kanefsky, web developer

THE DEADLINE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROJECT HAS PASSED.

To learn more and participate, visit: http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/hirise

Contribute to the scientific understanding of the surfaces of solar system bodies. Surface features help astronomers learn more about solar system bodies. Developing the critical eye needed to identify and measure surface features in images takes a considerable amount of practice. Clickworkers offers you the opporunity to fine-tune your skills. The Clickworkers program presents a series of images from which you can identify and measure the diameter of craters on two solar system bodies (Mars, Eros).

Once you have submitted your crater counts for Eros using the Clickworkers program, the resulting data will be analyzed by the science community. The accumulated measurements of many people provides an accurate measure of the number and size of craters on a body. This information contains clues to the age and impact history of the body’s surface.

Project owners + coordinators:
Christopher T. Russell, Principal Investigator

THE DEADLINE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROJECT HAS PASSED.

To learn more and participate, visit: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/clickworkers