Hubble Asteroid Hunter project
FEATURES
This Hubble Asteroid Hunter project combines citizen science , artificial intelligence , and cloud computing , and shows the benefits of exploring vast archival datasets , spanning decades in time , such as those hosted by the ESDC , to expand the horizons of research .
Citizen science with ESA Science data
Our exploration of the ESA Science Archives does not stop here . There are 25 missions ’ data in the ESA science archives , from planetary science , heliophysics to astronomy , likely hiding many more unexpected gems . That is why in 2022 we launched the Rosetta Zoo project on Zooniverse ( https :// www . zooniverse . org / projects / ellenjj / rosetta-zoo ), asking volunteers to explore changes in the surface of the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko , visited by the groundbreaking ESA mission , Rosetta , and famous for the landing of Philae . Over 1500 volunteers marked thousands of changes across 1000 Rosetta OSIRIS images which we are now exploring in a catalogue to be made available to scientists ( Vincent et al . 2022 ). In the latest project , Gaia Vari ( https :// www . gaiavari . space /, we explore the variability of thousands of stars observed by ESA ’ s 2 billion stars-surveyor , the Gaia mission . This will help scientists train and improve the classifications of automated classifiers towards the next Gaia data release . Who knows what else we might find ? n
About the authors
Sandor Kruk is Data Scientist at the European Space Agency ( ESA ) at ESAC , near Madrid , Spain . He develops tools for data analysis in astronomy and involves the public in genuine research through citizen science . He is the PI of the Hubble Asteroid Hunter project . Bruno Merín is the Head of the ESAC Science Data Centre ( ESDC ). He works on making the data from ESA ’ s Space Science missions accessible and is interested in citizen science and in the application of AI to the analysis of science data archives .
References
[ 1 ] Garvin et al . 2022 , Astronomy & Astrophysics 667 , A141 , 23 [ 2 ] Kruk et al . 2022 , Astronomy & Astrophysics 661 , A85 , 15 [ 3 ] Kruk et al . 2023 , Nature Astronomy 7 , 262 [ 4 ] Müller et al . 2023 , Astronomy & Astrophysics 670 , A53 , 16 [ 5 ] Racero et al . 2022 , Astronomy & Astrophysics 659 , A38 , 20
[ 6 ] Stark et al . 2022 , STScI Instrument Science Report AC 2022-8 , 25 pages
[ 7 ] Vincent et al . 2022 , 16 th Europlanet Science Congress 2022 , id . EPSC2022-494
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