The ongoing pandemic has shut down university labs, but outside the universities, citizen scientists have been hard at work, and in many places, they’ve been busier than ever. All the leading citizen-science projects in the world reported a 46% increase in submissions in early April compared with last year. Whether people are collecting new information or helping to examine what’s already been collected, smartphones have made data collection easier than ever. Looking for something productive and worthwhile to do in your spare time? A new citizen-science project called Astronomy Rewind is seeking volunteers to rescue tens of thousands of potentially valuable cosmic images that are mostly dead to science and bring them fully back to life. Here is everything you need to know about the Astronomy Rewind.
About Astronomy Rewind
As technology evolves through time, several elements of history are buried deep in the past. A long time ago, back when telephones had cords, photographs weren’t saved on the cloud or even on computers. Nowadays, astronomers tag images and other datasets with essential “metadata” so that those images can be explored and ordered by computers. But how would it be possible to integrate old images into the same databases? That’s where Astronomy Rewind comes in!
Astronomy Rewind is a citizen-science project that is providing a platform to curious volunteers to classify tens of thousands of “antique” astronomical images scanned from journals published by the American Astronomical Society.
Astronomy Rewind is inviting volunteers who can look through several scanned pages from records of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) from the 19th century to the mid-1990s.
A lot of astronomy data exist in formats that can’t be easily retrieved, or placed into the context of more recent investigations, restricting their current use to scientists. But these data are still incredibly worthy. Astronomy Rewind will help scientists to be able to access this rich archive of data and use it to make new developments.
The organizers of Astronomy Rewind believe that they will bring a lot of citizen scientists who will give their time to help them out in processing the old space images. They acknowledge the potential of crowdsourcing and how it can be used for various purposes even including astronomy.
How To Get Involved In Astronomy Rewind?
Astronomy Rewind will surely bring a new life into old journal articles and put long-lost images of the night sky back into circulation, and that’s interesting. Thousands of astronomy photos from the 19th century to the mid-1990s are mostly dead to science, and scientists are now aiming to bring them fully back to life! To achieve this they’re seeking passionate volunteers who can help them revive these “zombie images”. To get involved in this project you just need to sign up and start unlocking the information from the old journals. Transforming historical scientific literature into searchable, retrievable data is like turning the key to a treasure chest. So get involved right now and enjoy the images!
Sign up now!
The boom in citizen science indicates ongoing efforts to make science fun and accessible. At the same time, it has concentrated attention on enhancing the quality of data, not just the quantity. By committing to analysis through digital platforms, citizen scientists offer a repository of data experts might not otherwise have access to. Apart from being a helpful way to pass time while self-isolating, citizen science reminds us of the importance of community and collaboration at a time, it’s desperately required. Sp what overlooked treasures could you bring to light with Astronomy Rewind? The only way to figure this out is to sign up!
