NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed the CGCG 396-2 galaxy, an unusual multi-armed galaxy merger located in Orion , about 520 million light-years away from Earth.
This observation is the gem of the Galaxy Zoo Project, a citizen science project in which hundreds of thousands of volunteers survey galaxies to help scientists solve an astronomical problem - how to sort through the vast amounts of data produced by robotic telescopes. After a public vote, the most interesting objects from the Milky Way Zoo are selected by Hubble for subsequent observations. One such object is CGCG 396-2, which was photographed by the Hubble Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The Galaxy Zoo project originated when an astronomer was given the incredible and mind-numbing task of using his eyes to survey more than 90 Thousands of galaxies classified. By making a web interface and inviting citizen scientists to participate in the challenge, the Galaxy Zoo team was able to crowdsource the analysis, and in 6 months, 100,000 citizen astronomer volunteers contributed more than 40 million galaxy classifications.
Since its initial success, the Galaxy Zoo Project and its successors have contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and resulted in a rich variety of interesting astronomical discoveries that have exceeded their original goals. The project's success has also inspired more than 100 citizen science projects on the Zooniverse portal, including analysis of comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from ESA's Rosetta spacecraft visit, and counting killer whales in the remote Alaskan islands!
