What to do with 350,000 astronomers – Chris Lintott

Date: Fri. February 18th, 2011, 11:30 am-12:30 pm
Location: Rockefeller 221

Since its launch in 2007, the Galaxy Zoo project has involved hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the morphological classification of galaxies. Project PI Chris Lintott will review the results – which include a new understanding of the importance of red spirals – and their implications for our understanding of galaxy formation. The project has now expanded to include tasks ranging from discovering planets through to lunar classification, and the talk will also discuss the potential of this ‘citizen science’ method to help scientists cope with massive modern data sets.