Be a Clump Scout to Reveal Secrets of Stellar Nurseries

In the mid-20th century astronomers discovered "clumpy" galaxies filled with bright blobs—massive stellar nurseries where stars are born at an explosive rate. These clumpy galaxies were much more common in the early universe than they are today, and their disappearance remains a mystery.

The Euclid space telescope, an ESA mission, has begun to capture images of millions of galaxies, including high-definition views of clumpy galaxies that promise to reveal structure within and among the clumps. The volume of images is far more than any team of professional scientists could catalog alone.

Scientists are building a "digital assistant"—a machine learning tool partially trained with results from the earlier Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout project—and need volunteers for Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout II. As a volunteer you'll examine images the machine has labeled with squares, then move, delete, or add squares so the algorithm can learn; the machine often confuses distant stars or camera glitches for clumps.

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