Take a look at Galaxyzoo.org. It is a site where you can help astronomers categorize galaxies. That's right, the all knowing, all powerful Wizards of Oz need some help from the Munchkinlanders. We get the chance to assist in figuring out how all of "this" came about. Its actually pretty interesting to us amateur science geeks out here. OK, its interesting to me. I'm sure there are a lot more"me's" out there that a lending a hand with this. It'll be interesting to see how many people end up volunteering.
The premise is relatively straight forward. Advances in astronomy have led to a massive surplus of images that need to be categorized. There are not enough grad students with the time, nor professors with the research budgets to hire them to look at even a small fraction of them each year. That is where all us munchkinlanders come in. The people over at GalaxyZoo have developed an easy to use program that allows rank amateurs to categorize galaxies with a simple click of a mouse. They have simplified the categories to six options. After a short tutorial, we are turned loose onto the universe, literally.
It is actually quite a zen-like time. Can you think of better time to contemplate your navel than when you are looking at image after image of one galaxy after another? All you have to do is decide spiral or elliptical? Do your bit to further our understanding of life, the universe and everything (thank you Douglas Adams). Check out Galaxyzoo.org.
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