The Hobby-Eberly Telescope collects pictures that citizen scientists use to determine galaxies within the Dark Energy Explorers mission. Credit: McDonald Observatory
In an unprecedented galaxy-mapping endeavor, astronomers have enlisted over 10,000 novice scientists throughout 85 nations to help their formidable mission. With their sights set on a groundbreaking mission to uncover the enigmatic properties of darkish vitality, the workforce is now striving to broaden their volunteer power even additional. This pioneering effort may probably make clear one of many best mysteries of our universe.
Known as HETDEX, or the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment, the analysis mission is predicated at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory and depends on volunteers who take part on-line in a mission referred to as Dark Energy Explorers. Participants can expertise what it’s wish to be an astronomer utilizing a smartphone or laptop, teasing aside the mysteries of the universe whereas serving to skilled astronomers discover distant galaxies and study extra concerning the mysterious power often known as darkish vitality, which is inflicting the universe to quickly broaden.
Humans are higher than machines on the subject of selecting out true galaxies from pictures like these within the Dark Energy Explorers mission. Credit: University of Texas at Austin
Since Dark Energy Explorers launched in February 2021, greater than 10,000 volunteers have recognized roughly 240,000 galaxies. That quantities to nearly one-tenth of the variety of galaxies the researchers anticipate to finally discover of their survey of a patch of sky that features many of the Big Dipper and is concerning the dimension of two,000 full moons.
“That’s why we need more people,” mentioned Karl Gebhardt, a professor of astronomy at UT Austin and mission scientist and principal investigator for HETDEX. “If we can get to 100,000 people volunteering, which I think is doable across the world, then we’re there in the next year.”
Dark Energy Explorers makes use of the Zooniverse platform, the most important novice science group on this planet. Users take part through the Zooniverse web site or the Zooniverse smartphone app (out there for iOS and Android). Participants can create a free account after which choose Dark Energy Explorers from an inventory of initiatives.
After a short tutorial, volunteers have a look at astronomical pictures and resolve whether or not the objects they see are galaxies or random noise, a distinction that even probably the most subtle software program packages have an excessive amount of hassle detecting. Volunteers then swipe left or proper to point whether or not a picture exhibits a galaxy.
“It’s really exciting to see how enthusiastic the public is about classifying these galaxies,” mentioned Lindsay House, the UT Austin graduate scholar who leads the mission.
The purpose is to construct the most important 3D map of the cosmos, all targeted on galaxies within the early universe to assist reveal essential clues about darkish vitality.
The large analysis mission is designed to disclose whether or not darkish vitality adjustments over time or is fixed. At least two-thirds of the universe is believed to be manufactured from darkish vitality, however scientists know little about it. Understanding how darkish vitality behaves is an important first step towards determining precisely what it’s, however astronomers want an enormous pattern of distant galaxies to review to watch darkish vitality at work. That’s what HETDEX is—an enormous survey of greater than 1,000,000 distant galaxies utilizing one of many largest optical telescopes on this planet, the 11-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope on the McDonald Observatory in West Texas.
Dark Energy Explorers volunteers study pictures from HETDEX, serving to to scale back the time astronomers spend on this process by 90%. That means, the professionals can focus their energies on the hardest classifications.
“We’ve tried writing laptop code to do that and even used machine learning, but we found the human eye is significantly superior,” Gebhardt said. “We were skeptical at first, but we were blown away by the accuracy.”
To identify the 247,000 galaxies so far, it took volunteers 3.75 million swipes. It takes so many more swipes than galaxies because each candidate galaxy is reviewed by about 15 people to help reach a consensus and increase accuracy.
Dark Energy Explorers was created by a team led by graduate student Lindsay House, HETDEX principal investigator Karl Gebhardt, HETDEX data scientist Erin Mentuch Cooper, professor and astronomy education expert Keely Finkelstein, postdoctoral researcher Chenxu Liu and graduate student Dustin Davis.
