The Milky Way Project: Mapping Star Formation in Our Home Galaxy, One Click At a Time Tharindu K. Jayasinghe1, Matthew S. Povich1, Don M. Dixon1, Jose Velasco2​ + MWP Team 1Department Of Physics And Astronomy, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA 2Citrus College, Glendora, CA

Introduction Creating a DR2 bubble catalog Comparisons with the MWP DR1 catalog The Milky Way Project (MWP) is a citizen-science initiative launched on The MWP “Phoenix” data reduction pipeline aggregates classification data the Zooniverse platform in 2010.​ DR2 bubbles better represent H II regions found by MWP using a density-based clustering algorithm that finds associations of volunteers MWP users make “classifications” using a variety of drawing tools to help similar drawings. Clustered drawings are averaged to produce a catalog of scientists identify astrophysical phenomena in 3-color infrared (IR) images MWP objects. • 38% of DR2 bubbles matched DR1 bubbles (GLIMPSE survey area) from the Spitzer Space Telescope.​ An illustration of this aggregation process for bubbles is shown below in • 65% of these matched DR2 bubbles had a smaller geometric mean Citizen scientists catalogued 10x more bubbles than Figure 2. radius for the “inner” bubble rim (Figure 3) previously found by the pros • DR2 bubbles were ~25% smaller than the corresponding DR1 bubbles. Prior to the MWP, visual inspection of Spitzer GLIMPSE survey images by (a) Collect MWP classification drawings • DR2 bubbles systematically had a higher eccentricity (Figure 3) a small team of researchers led to catalogs listing 591 bubbles This change can be attributed to the following: (Churchwell et al. 2006, 2007)​ • Improved accuracy in the MWP drawing tools (ellipses in DR2 vs MWP volunteers catalogued 5,106 bubbles within the GLIMPSE survey elliptical annuli in DR1). area (DR1; Simpson et al. 2012), marking an order of magnitude increase over previous catalogs. • Images that are more “zoomed in” than those used previously, enables small objects to be easily classified. The MWP at a glance MWP images classified during 2012-2015 did not include MIPS 24 µm 35,000+ REGISTERED USERS data (Figure 2). 24 µm 3M+ TOTAL CLASSIFICATIONS 8 µm 4.5 µm 8,000+ ONLINE DISCUSSIONS (b) Find clusters of drawings Bubbles as tracers of star formation The IR morphology of H II regions is often complicated. These regions require a massive star or star cluster with enough UV Figure 3: MWP DR1 objects (green) and the matching MWP DR2 objects (white). emission to excite polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that emit strongly in the Spitzer/IRAC 8.0 µm bandpass. Warm dust is traced by the MIPS 24 Results and next steps µm band, while stars dominate the IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 µm bands. New catalogs – Finalizing the Spitzer search An interesting H II region morphology- Bubbles • Produced DR2 alpha catalog of ~4000 bubbles using unanalyzed MWP Bubbles exhibit characteristic sharp inner rims in the 8 µm ring or classifications from 2012-2015. arc morphologies, which usually enclose 24 µm nebular emission. • Further refinements will be made with new data from 2016-2017 to Classifying objects in the MWP produce a final Spitzer DR2 bubble catalog. (c) Average the drawings in each cluster • The first citizen-science bow shock catalog will be published alongside the DR2 bubble catalog. Bubbles and bow shocks will be self- 8 µm consistently correlated within the MWP database (see poster 340.09 4.5 µm by Dixon et al.). 3.6 µm Improved Catalog properties – Emphasizes reliability • Reliability scores will be assigned to each MWP bubble based on user weighting, matches between different MWP searches, and “hit rate” (fraction of users who identified the bubble in a given image). • Uncertainties in central coordinates, semi-major and semi-minor axes, Figure 1: MWP classification interface and orientation angle for each bubble will be reported based on dispersions between classifications. MWP volunteers are guided to identify objects of interest (bubbles, bow shocks, yellowballs, etc.) in a given image and are presented with a list of References classification tools (Figure 1). Produce catalog Churchwell et. al. 2006, ApJ, 649, 759 Kobulnicky,H.A., et. al. 2016, ApJS, 227, 18 These tools are easy to use and can be adjusted to fit the different object Figure 2: (a) Raw classification drawings from all MWP users (2012-2015), Churchwell et. al. 2007, ApJ, 670, 428 Simpson et. al, 2012, MNRAS, 424, 2442 morphologies encountered in the MWP data. (b) clustered classifications, and (c) averaged classifications for the DR2 alpha Kerton et. al. 2015, ApJ, 799, 2 bubbles catalog. Bow shocks and “Yellowballs” in the MWP Acknowledgements Bow shocks appear as compact 24 µm arcs and are typically associated Poster PDF MWP This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grants with OB stars (Kobulnicky et al. 2016). Yellowballs are thought to be a mix of compact and ultra-compact H II regions + similar regions ionized by less CAREER-1454334 and AST-1411851. Special thanks to our MWP volunteers! powerful B stars (Kerton et.al 2015). www.milkywayproject.org