Citizen Scientists Reveal a Bubbly Milky Way

A team of volunteers from the general public has pored over observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and discovered more than 5,000 "bubbles" in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Oxford University
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March 07, 2012

A team of volunteers has pored over observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and discovered more than 5,000 "bubbles" in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy. Young, hot stars blow these bubbles into surrounding gas and dust, indicating areas of brand new star formation. 

Upwards of 35,000 "citizen scientists" sifted through the Spitzer infrared data as part of the online Milky Way Project to find these telltale bubbles. The volunteers have turned up 10 times as many bubbles as previous surveys so far.

MORE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-062&cid=release_2012-062&msource=12062

Other Citizen Science Projects:
Link >>> http://buhlplanetarium2.tripod.com/FAQ/citizenscience.html 

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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