New project could help you become cosmic explorer

Washington, Dec. 18 (ANI): 'Radio Galaxy Zoo' launched Tuesday is a new 'citizen science' project that lets anyone become a cosmic explorer.

By matching galaxy images with radio images from CSIRO's Australia Telescope, one can work out if a galaxy has a supermassive black hole.

CSIRO's Dr. Julie Banfield, an Australian coordinator of the international project, said that it takes about a minute to learn what to do.

Banfield said that then to actually work with the images takes only a few seconds each-perhaps a couple of minutes for the really tough ones.

She said that one just needs to match up a couple of pictures and look for what they think is the galaxy at their center.

The first Zooniverse project, Galaxy Zoo, was started by astronomers Chris Lintott and Kevin Schawinski in 2006 when they were both at Oxford University. (ANI)