citizenscience
Latest
NASA wants your pictures of clouds to verify its satellites’ data
NASA announced this week that it's looking for some citizen scientists to help out with a project. Six orbiting instruments make up NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) project and they are used to study Earth's climate and the role clouds play in climate change. But sometimes it's hard for these instruments to differentiate clouds from other Earthly things. For example, NASA says that thin, wispy cirrus clouds and snow can easily be confused because they're both cold and bright. Differentiation gets even more difficult when these clouds hang out above patches of snow. And that's where citizen scientists come in.
‘Sea Hero Quest’ hides dementia research inside a VR game
On the face of it, Sea Hero Quest could be just another mobile game. Cheerful, colorful and with plenty of bite-sized levels intended to test memory and spatial awareness. But while you're captaining your little boat along snaking channels towards checkpoints, the game is watching you. It's scoring your spatial navigation skill, one of the first innate abilities dementia sufferers experience a deterioration in. The data gathered is contributing towards a better understanding of what 'normal' looks like -- the benchmark for navigation skill across different demographics of people. The organizations behind the game are now back with a VR sequel, and the goal of advancing dementia research even further with their gamified approach.
Citizen scientists find a failed star in the Sun's neighborhood
Citizen scientists may not have the time and equipment of their pro counterparts, but their dedication can sometimes lead to discoveries that would otherwise be impractical. Case in point: a NASA-backed citizen science initiative, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, has found a brown dwarf (effectively, a failed star) relatively close to the Sun at 110 light years away. Rosa Castro and three other amateur observers combed through a "flipbook" of images from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to spot the dwarf as it traversed through space. The discovery is notable for a few reasons, and not just because dedicated astronomers didn't catch it.
NASA challenges you to design experiments for Mars and beyond
Want to play a significant role in NASA's space exploration efforts without spending years in training? You now have a better chance of making your mark. NASA has launched Solve, a site that makes it easy to find all the agency's public competitions and crowdsourced projects. You'll mostly see previously announced efforts there right now, but the inaugural offering is definitely worth a look -- the $20,000 Mars Balance Mass Challenge asks you to design an experiment or technology payload that will double as ballast on future Martian explorers. You'll have until November 21st to submit your brainstorms, and you'll find out if your work is Mars-bound sometime in mid-January.
