Couch potatoes? Let's not be so harsh. How about 'armchair astronomers?' Feel better now? However you see yourself, bringing the universe into your living room has become a reality for everyone from researchers to bored 8 year olds. Use the following list of websites to see how far you can go and what contributions you can make with just a laptop and a track pad. Learn how you can become a ‘Citizen Scientist’ in astronomy and space exploration. These are all locations where you can explore the universe from your den or family room - no spaceship required, just an active curiosity and plenty of time to spare. Some are pretty simple and straightforward - good for interested kids. Others are truly serious astronomical research efforts you can contribute to. Still others require relatively sophisticated equipment to participate but you can pick and choose what works for you. Enjoy!
LHC@home (http://lhcathome.cern.ch/)
- enables users to help physicists model particle behavior in particle accelerators.
Stardust@home (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
- enables users to aid researchers in the hunt for pristine interstellar dust particles captured in aerogel the stardust collection mission.
Transitsearch (http://www.transitsearch.org/)
- enables amateur astronomers with CCD imaging capability on their telescopes to forward information about lightcurves at suspect stars to be examined for potential exoplanet discovery.
Mino Planet Center (http://minorplanetcenter.org/iau/mpc.html)
- Much like TransitSearch, more advanced observers can monitor and report the activity and behavior of asteroids and minor planets.
International Occultation Timing Association (http://www.occultations.org/)
- Also much like TransitSearch, more advanced observers record the obscuration of stars by planets and moons.
The Great Worldwide StarCount (http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount/) and the GLOBE Program (http://globe.gov/)
- invites participants to count and report the number of stars seen from their location during specific times of the year. The effort is to assess the role of light pollution on astronomical observing around the world.
Citizen Sky (http://www.citizensky.org/)
- asks participants to help scientists solve a 175-year old mystery about the appearance of a star, epsilon Aurigae. No observing equipment is required and participants can work on everything from observation to publishing the associated research papers.
Center for Backyard Astrophysics (http://cbastro.org/)
- asks interested amateurs to join a global network of small telescope users to monitor the activity of cataclysmic variable stars – stars that flare up in brightness on irregular schedules and for unknown reasons.
American Association of Variable Star Observers (http://www.aavso.org/)
- is a well-established, well-organized and venerable organization whose mission is to catalog he behavior of stars of variable brightness. Its members range widely in age and experience but AAVSO has great projects for CS’s of all ages. Highly recommended.
Einstein@home (http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/)
- is a distributed computing program that uses your computer’s down time to search for gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars or radio pulsars in binary star systems. One project analyzes data from the Laser Interferometry Gravitational Wave Observatory and the other looks at data from Arecibo Observatory the world’s largest radio telescope, located in Puerto Rico.
Cosmology @home (http://www.cosmologyathome.org/)
- uses your computer to find the best model that characterizes our universe as we currently understand it. Pretty heavy-duty stuff going on here…
SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
- uses internet-connected computers to aid in the search for ET (I). The program which runs in the background downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.
Zooniverse (http://www.zooniverse.org/home)
- Wow! Want to hunt supernovae? Galactic collisions? Look for solar storms or work on galaxy shape classification using Hubble Space telescope data? How about cataloging features on the moon? You can even work on the interpretation of weather records from the past centuries, all here at the Zooniverse.
Milkyway@home (http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/)
- uses your computer’s downtime to create highly accurate 3-D model of the universe using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Orbit@home (http://orbit.psi.edu/)
- is a project funded by a NASA grant to use distributed computing as a means to better and more quickly analyze solar system dynamics data as it relates to the identification and characterization of Near-Earth Asteroids and their possible interaction with Earth.
Many of the projects use an application called BOINC that enables your computer to participate in distributed computational projects according to their Wiki:
"BOINC, short for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, is open source software for volunteer and grid computing. Its used by science research projects like SETI@Home, Rosetta@home, World Community Grid, Climateprediction.net and many other Universities and Organizations around the world.
Volunteers can download the BOINC software, attach to one or more of these science projects and participate in the science research. The BOINC software will run on any type of computer and just operates in the background and wont effect your normal computer use. Why leave a computer idle when it could be doing something beneficial for science?"
Check them out and have a good time!
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