Now you can help planetary scientists to search active asteroids
(Zooniverse)
Zooniverse just launched the citizen’s science project Active Asteroids.
In this project anyone can help planetary scientists to search active asteroids in the images taken by the Victor Blanco ground-based telescope.
Selected options will be re-observed with other telescopes to confirm their status.
The main difference between comets and asteroids is usually their activity in the form of gas and dust emissions.
However, there are objects that exhibit the properties of both categories of small bodies, such as centaurs or active asteroids, which are capable of acquiring comas and comet-like tails.
These objects are poorly studied, since not so many of them are known and we only know a few dozen of active asteroids.
On average, only one in ten thousand asteroids are classified as active, so a huge amount of observational data is required to obtain a larger sample for study.
The citizen’s science project Active Asteroids aims to find, as its names suggests, new active asteroids.
It was launched on the citizen’s science portal Zooniverse by a group of scientists led by Colin Orion Chandler of Northern Arizona University.
The project participants will analyze images taken since 2012 by the DECam camera installed on the 4-meter Victor Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo International Observatory in Chile.
Anyone with Internet access can take part in the project. To get started, you need to register and familiarize with the rules.
After that, you can start analyzing images for the presence of a cometary tail or coma in some objects.
The scientists will check the work and all the interesting candidates will be additionally observed using ground-based telescopes to confirm their activity.
The results of the work of the projects will not only have scientific value, but will also help in training neural networks that will be used to analyze images of future ground and space observatories.
If you love space and science, this is a great opportunity
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