Abstract :
Many members of the general public are enthusiastic about science and, in particular, astronomy. Numerous opportunities to learn about and engage in enjoying astronomical discoveries exist, especially through the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) education and outreach program (http://hubblesite.org). In addition, the general public is interested in active participation in research, which is made possible through citizen science projects. Although many flavors of citizen science exist today, those involving HST data are of the visual classification variety and are aimed specifically at producing unique scientific results that would be difficult if not impossible to accomplish without large numbers of citizen science volunteers. This article touches on several projects based on HST data, covering several different astrophysics areas.
Keywords :
astronomical telescopes; astronomy computing; groupware; pattern classification; HST data; Hubble Space Telescope data; astrophysics; citizen science; visual classification; Astronomy; Collaboration; Globalization; Information analysis; Science - general; Scientific computing; Telescopes; astronomy; citizen science; outreach; science research; scientific computing;
