ICRAR e info icrar.org t +61 (08) 6488 7766 www.icrar.org CITIZEN SCIENCE case study real research outcomes for astronomers while Vista ExtraGalactic Survey (WAVES). Citizen also being an innovative and effective method to scientists will conduct real astronomical engage the public in science through astronomy. analysis of images and data, and gain a practical understanding of modern astronomy and how Off the back of the success of theSkyNet, astronomers study the distant Universe. ICRAR partnered with ABC Science in 2015 to develop Galaxy Explorer. This active This expanded Galaxy Explorer program has citizen science program allows anyone to help the capacity to reach tens of thousands of astronomers classify galaxies up to four billion global citizen scientists, and engage them in the light years away. Volunteers are provided with process of analysing Australian astronomical a quick tutorial, before taking a trip to some data. The results will be essential for the success of the furthest reaches of the Universe. Galaxy of the multimillion-dollar WAVES project, led Explorer complements the work of theSkyNet, from ICRAR. and provides data to ICRAR astronomers working on the Galaxy And Mass Assembly This survey is the largest ever (GAMA) survey. experiment on the evolution Originally developed for National Science of galaxies, and the work of Week, Galaxy Explorer has grown to become a powerful ongoing citizen science platform. The citizen scientists will have a project’s volunteers have successfully helped lasting impact in the field of ICRAR’s astronomers classify and measure the properties of more than 210,000 galaxies. astronomy. Since early 2016, ICRAR has had a dedicated Finally, ICRAR is part of Radio Galaxy Zoo, postgraduate research student analysing the an online project that sees citizen scientists outputs from Galaxy Explorer and merging help researchers identify galaxies hosting the galaxy sizes with other catalogues we have jet-emitting supermassive black holes. available. The overall improvement has been The initiative has seen more than 12,000 remarkable, with some very complex regions volunteers complete more than 1.9 million of the sky now successfully split into distinct classifications. More than 95,000 radio source sources, helping astronomers create a detailed components have been classified and up to atlas of the sky. 40,000 radio galaxies analysed as part of CITIZEN SCIENCE the project. Radio Galaxy Zoo is co-led by At any given time, day or night, tens of thousands of volunteers Now, Galaxy Explorer has just been awarded ICRAR, and is part of the Zooniverse suite a $350,000 Federal Government grant to of citizen science projects headquartered at are donating their time or computing power to ICRAR’s citizen prepare data for the largest survey of galaxies Oxford University and Adler Planetarium. science programs. The Centre is engaging the wider community the Universe has ever seen, the Wide Area in real research through three distinct projects; Galaxy Explorer, theSkyNet and Radio Galaxy Zoo. ICRAR is passionate about giving citizen almost 20,000 computers around the world are scientists the chance to make a genuine contributing to the project. This adds up to a contribution to discovering more about the distributed network capable of performing more Universe. The Centre’s citizen science journey than one million processing tasks per week, began in 2011 with the launch of theSkyNet, a placing theSkyNet on par with a supercomputer project that harnesses spare computing power with between 60 and 100 TFLOPs of compute during down times to help researchers process power, or just shy of a top 500 supercomputer. astronomical data. The initiative was the first distributed computing project based in Australia. Over the last six years, more than 54,000 people have processed data for theSkyNet and At any given time, day or night, the website has generated more than 830,000 unique visits from 181 countries. In 2014, almost 20,000 computers theSkyNet achieved a peak processing power of 106 TFLOPs, equivalent to 366 modern around the world are Cover A mosaic of results Intel Core i7 processors worth approximately DISCOVER MORE from theSkyNet citizen science project. The overall contributing to the project. $249,000 (excluding running costs). image shows how fast stars are forming in ‘nearby’ theSkyNet - theSkyNet.org galaxy Messier 100 (M100), theSkyNet has helped astronomers discover The total amount of data processed by white patches are hotbeds the properties of hundreds of thousands theSkyNet would take approximately 600 years of new stars, purple areas Galaxy Explorer - galaxyexplorer.net.au are where fewer young stars of galaxies and develop automated ways of on a high-performance desktop or 24 hours on are forming. Each sub image finding interesting sources in large volumes the world’s fastest supercomputer. The initiative are the results from the Galaxy Zoo Radio - radio.galaxyzoo.org 45,000+ galaxies theSkyNet of radio data. At any given time, day or night, has been recognised for its ability to produce volunteers have processed..