As part of it Initiative of civic science projectNASA and University of Minnesota Being grouped and asking for volunteers to help identify clouds on Thursday.
Interested civic scientists will help astronomers classify thousands of images of Jupiter captured by the Juno spacecraft. It’s the first time we’ve heard of NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Earlier this year, it made its 39th fly-by to Jupiter and captured a stunning image of Jupiter and its two moons, Io and Europe. Last November, NASA released the first 3D view of Jupiter’s complex atmosphere. Atmosphere is the primary concern of new projects.
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| ‘A picture of the 22nd orbit of the Juno spacecraft around Jupiter shows the region near the planet’s north pole. These vortices have a huge variety in color and size (hurricane-like storms). Scientists need to create a catalog of these storms to understand how they form.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / SwRI / Ramnakumar Shankar. |
On average, Jupiter is about 715M km (444M miles) away from Earth, so it is not surprising that its atmosphere is very different from ours. The atmosphere is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Some similarities between Earth and Jupiter are the wide range of cloud types and sizes. It is believed that learning more about Jupiter’s atmosphere could shed significant light on Earth’s weather patterns and perhaps help us learn more about the early days of the solar system.
The project, Jovian Vortex Hunter, Relying on citizen scientists to detect atmospheric vortices, ‘which are clouds that are round or elliptical in shape like a hurricane. Scientists are particularly interested in physics as to why these atmospheric features come in so many shapes and sizes.
“There are so many images that it would take a few years for our small team to test them,” said Ramnakumar Shankar, a postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy who is leading the Javian Vortex Hunter project. ‘We need the help of the public to identify which pictures have vortices, where and how they appear. By keeping a catalog of properties (especially vortices) in place, we can study the physics behind how these properties form and how they relate to the formation of the atmosphere, especially under clouds, where we cannot observe them directly. ‘
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| The Jovian Vortex Hunter Project asks volunteers to identify different types of atmospheric vortices on Jupiter. The website has step-by-step tutorials to help you. |
If you’re a little unsure about helping, don’t worry, as there is Resources More to help you, you are not alone. At least 16 people will check each image and the site offers tips to help you The information provided by citizen scientists will save astronomers a lot of time, as well as the information will be used to write a computer algorithm to speed up future investigations.
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| ‘Civil scientist Tania Olekswick created this color-enhanced image using data from a Junocam camera … At the time, the spacecraft was about 31,000 miles (about 50,000 km) latitude about 50 ° south of the top of the planet’s clouds.’
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS. Click to enlarge. |
If you’re struggling with identification, you’re probably not the only one, which could mean something important for experts to check out. ‘If one person has trouble categorizing an image, so will others,’ Shankar said. ‘This may indicate that we have found something new or unique that we examine more closely.’
The project is almost half completed and more than 800 volunteers are already working If you want to join, Click here.
