Category Archives: Space participation

Astronomy, Exoplanets, Space participation

Planet Hunters pass 20M classifications

November 11, 2013 TopSpacer

The Planet Hunters citizen science program hits a large numeric milestone: 20 million classifications and counting! – Planet Hunters

Planet Hunters has just crossed the 20 million classification mark, a milestone to be celebrated! Thinking back to this time three years ago, the the Zooniverse development team and Planet Hunters science team were hard at work on the design and building of the site. We didn’t know if people would come to the website to help find planets by reviewing Kepler light curves; we were showing graphs of a star’s brightness over time, not the beautiful galaxies in the stunning images on Galaxy Zoo. Since the day the project launched in December 2010, we’ve been blown away by the response. It’s been truly overwhelming. I know I couldn’t have comprehended reaching 20 million classifications back then, and here were are with over 260,000 volunteers worldwide participating in Planet Hunters!

Living in Space, Space participation

Overview Effect discussion at Air & Space + ‘Race to Space’ conf examined issues of race, space settlement and STEM

November 11, 2013 TopSpacer

Here’s a report on the recent panel discussion at the Nat. Air & Space Museum about the Overview Effect (see earlier posting) : An Astronauts’ View of Earth Could Change Us All – The Daily Planet.

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NASA astronaut Mae Carol Jemison participated in the recent Race in Space conference hosted by Duke’s Department of African and African American Studies in Durham, North Carolina.

The Race in Space conference is a first of its kind event that seeks to explore the issues of race, culture and nationality in the colonization of space stations, planets and stars in space. This two day conference will highlight astronauts, researchers, artists and authors who have studied both the realities and imaginative events involving the dynamics of race and space settlements.

Here are reports on the conference and Jemison’s presentation:

Contests and Games, GPS, Space participation

“Travel bug’ going to the great geocache in the sky

November 6, 2013 TopSpacer

Geocaching has become a popular “treasure hunt” activity around the world. Small stashes of miscellaneous items are hidden in containers in over 2.25 million spots around the globe and their locations archived at www.Geocaching.com. Participants use their GPS units to find a cache, which might be by a waterfall in a forest or behind a telephone pole along a city street. The geocacher can take an item from the cache but they should replace it with some new item.

Geocaching has now extended from earth into space: Geocaching in Space FAQ – The Geocaching Blog.

In 2008, Richard Garriott placed a small cache on the International Space Station during his visit there. This evening, a Soyuz with three new ISS crew members will blast off and arrive at the station in the morning. They include US astronaut Rick Mastracchio who will be carrying a Travel Bug Dog Tag. A travel bug is a Trackable item that simply has an ID that is registered at www.geocaching.com and as it is moved from cache to cache, the movers write about the tag’s travels on the website. Garriott left one on the station and Mastracchio will take a new one that is sponsored by the 5th grade class of Chase Elementary School in Waterbury, Connecticut and add it to the cached on the station. He will, however, return it to the class when he returns from space in six months.

For more details see:

Exoplanets, Space participation, The Moon

Citizen Science: Moonometer, Moon Zoo Live, Planet Hunters and Zooniverse job ad

November 5, 2013 TopSpacer 2 Comments

Some citizen science news items:

The Moonometer at the Moon Zoo project gives the latest count in the number of LRO images classified by participants: The Moonometer -Moon Zoo

Check out also the Moon Zoo Live page to see a real-time updated display of where the latest feature to be classified is located on the Moon and the location on earth of the classifier.

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As noted here recently, the Planet Hunters Ccitizen science project has recently announced the discovery of 14 exoplanet candidates, including the seventh in the first 7-planet system, which has the romanatic name of KOI-351. Robert Simpson, a co-author of the paper on the findings, has used the Celestia astronomy simulator to depict the KOI-351 system. Here is a video of the planets in action: Exploring the Tiny Planetary System of KOI-351 – Planet Hunters.

Tour of the Seven-Planet System Around the Star KOI-351
from Robert Simpson on Vimeo.

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Zooniverse is an organization that runs a number of citizen science programs including Moon Zoo and Planet Hunters mentioned above. They are looking for programmers to work for them : Want to work with the Zooniverse? Zooniverse.